X 



THE 

PILGRIM FAITH 



MAINTAINED. 



AN EXHIBIT 

OF THE 

CALVARMINIAN DOCTRINE 

AS FOUND IN 

VITAL THEOLOGY. 



BY 

FABER DeBONSAT, P. P. P. 



/ 1{ iUL 23 

BOSTON: / 
IRA BRADLEY & CO., 

162 Washington Street. 



Copyright, 1884, 
By Ira Bradley & Co. 



UapaKaKuiV eirayuivigeaOaL rr) aira^ TTapahoQeLar} tois 

ay Lots niareL. — JUDE 3. 



Bound in Cloth, 60 cents. 
Send to the Publishers for a copy. 



PREFACE. 



When the Pastor of a Pilgrim People speaks 
out, it should be in words sober as well as sound. 
And if anything in this essay should seem less 
genial or more severe than necessary, it may be 
charitably attributed to oversight, under the pres- 
sure of the present crisis. 

Let a man in his boyhood accept the Gospel 
of Christ, and thenceforward study and preach it 
through a long life, finding it more and more pre- 
cious, in its orthodox purity essentially as taught 
by the Fathers ; and then let him see the whole 
fabric suddenly undermined by a "New Creed," 
with the essential points of their faith left out, — 
a creed set forth as henceforward the " standard " 
of his whole denomination, with the ministerial 
settlements and church relations generally being 
fast conformed thereto ; — and it must not be 
wondered, if he feels impelled to break silence, 
and utter a faint remonstrance in the name of his 
Master. 

He felt honored by his heritage in the Pilgrim 
communion; but now he is tempted to feel as 
if betrayed to the Philistines, and as if almost 



iv 



Preface. 



ashamed to be seen in the company he is in. He 
must at least wash his hands from all complicity in 
the sad surrender. And, throwing off all wonted 
reserve and timidity, he must somehow or other 
let it be known, that he (and he hopes some others) 
are still fighting under the old flag. 

Such a one must be forgiven, if even, in his 
effort to maintain the essential Faith of the Fa- 
thers, and to relieve it from the scandals that have 
been heaped upon it, — he should seem at times to 
be trenching upon forbidden ground, or broaching 
novelties not stereotyped in the schools. The 
New England Fathers themselves, Edwards, Bel- 
lamy, Hopkins, Emmons, Taylor, and others, have 
been steadily making repairs on the Old Stand- 
ards, in order to commend the essential faith more 
completely to mankind. And that is all we pro- 
pose. 

The author is no fossilized old-school conserva- 
tive, scorning all improvement. It will be found 
that he is ready to disown and demolish any inci- 
dental disfigurement, in the interest of the Funda- 
mental Truth. But he cannot brook a desertion of 
the Truth itself. He will not countenance the 
plan, of getting rid of a few encumbrances by 
demolishing the whole Citadel of Zion. 

When we adopt the Bible as our infallible guide, 
we have to accept the divided destiny of mankind ; 
conceding that some reach a ruin and wretched- 
ness incalculable, while others attain a glory and 
blessedness inconceivable. When tender minds 



Preface. 



v 



revolt from this, particularly in view of the large 
number lost, — it is customary to seek some possi- 
ble mode of increase to the number of the glorified, 
by a letting down of the gospel demands ; a very 
dangerous tendency surely. On the contrary, the 
relief found here by the author is in the other 
direction, — in mitigation of view concerning doom 
for the masses outside; so far as to relieve all 
imputations upon divine righteousness and good- 
ness, without catering to the wilfully wicked. 

It is here proposed, that the current philosophy 
(nowhere found as Scripture doctrine) which teaches 
that the one-ness of human ruin is a one-ness of 
endless torment alike for all, — be modified by this 
thought ; that when heaven is lost, there is room 
outside for the varied experience of every gradation 
of destiny according to desert, from the endless 
woe that contrasts with the endless joy, down to 
the bare loss of heaven with no hereafter bestowed. 
The orthodox doctrine requires only this : Remedi- 
less ruin, fully and fairly proportioned, for all 
dying unrenewed. 

This little book contains only hints, drawn out 
by the present emergency, from voluminous Bible 
studies ; which a quiet desire for thoroughness 
and accuracy — along with other causes — has not 
hastened into print. 



May ijth, 1884. 



" INQUISITIVUS. 
* And who are you ? Your like we have not known ! 
Shades of the fathers, do ye walk again ? 
Methinks, old Edwards, or some ancient sire, 
Turns in his grave, stirred by the modern din 
Of new-departure down the liberal steep ; 
And — fired with ardor of advancing thought — 
Yet sounds a warning to degenerate sons ! 

"THE SPECTRE. 
. . 'Tis well! so be it!" 

Macbeth Revised, 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Vital Orthodoxy 9 

CHAPTER II. 
The Doom of Sin . . . . . .21 

CHAPTER III. 
The Power of an Endless Life • 31 

CHAPTER IV. 
Reserved from Decay . . . • 39 

CHAPTER V. 
Mitigation of Destiny . • • . 56 

CHAPTER VI. 
Creation Justified 66 

CHAPTER VII. 
Calvarminian Doctrine 78 

[vii] 



viii 



Contents. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Election and Free -Will 89 

CHAPTER IX. 
Sundry Vital Truths 102 

CHAPTER X. 
The Faith Maintained 113 

The New Creed ....... 124 



THE 

PILGRIM FAITH MAINTAINED, 



CHAPTER I. 

VITAL ORTHODOXY. 

" For as through one man sin entered into the world, 
and death through sin ; even so death passed unto all 
men, so that all have sinned." Rom. 5 : 12. 

God made man " in his own image " ; and 
by the image made we know the Maker, God. 

"God made man upright," a "partaker of 
the divine nature " through the indwelling 
Spirit of God. Man was thus fitted for holi- 
ness, happiness, and " the gift of " eternal life. 

God made man a free moral agent, capable 
of sinning, and so losing the divine nature, and 
the opportunity of reaching eternal life. 

Man thus made upright and free, " hath 
sought out many inventions " of sin. Our first 
parents fell into sin, and thereby lost the divine 
nature or Spirit of God, thus exposing them- 



io The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

selves and their posterity to continual sinning 
and consequent suffering, as long as their be- 
ing should continue. 

No free moral agent could be made meritori- 
ous or guilty, holy or sinful (in an active sense.) 
He could only be by creation fitted for the one, 
or by loss of the divine nature exposed to the 
other. 

The correction of error in this last paragraph, 
was one of the foremost improvements upon 
Old Calvinism, made by New England The- 
ology. President Edwards, in his last chapter 
on Original Sin, set forth luminously the true 
doctrine of man's fall, as simply or mainly a 
loss of the Holy Spirit in man. 

If he and others had adhered carefully to 
this simple definition of the fall, and had not 
often carelessly mixed it with other theorizings, 
New England would have been spared the 
present extreme of Pelagian defection, which 
has come in upon her like a flood. 

When Adam had lost the divine nature or 
Spirit of God, he could not by natural genera- 
tion furnish it to his descendants. And both 
he and they, without this divine aid, are sure 
to go astray, from the first act of infancy to the 
last act of age. Even the newly born babe, 
before any sinful act, is destitute of the divine 



Vital Orthodoxy. n 



nature or spiritual life, and can have it only as 
a direct and personal "gift of God." Our first 
birth must be followed by a second birth, we 
being "born of the Spirit" by the new indwell- 
ing of that Spirit, as a return to us personally 
of the divine nature lost, — or we remain in 
our mere human nature fallen, and entitled 
only to what that fallen nature brings. 

It is the denial or neglect of the truth given 
in the last paragraph, that constitutes all the 
loose Pelagian heresies prevailing at this day. 
Forgetting that all the human race, young as 
well as old, are by nature destitute of the divine 
nature or new birth of the regenerating Spirit, 
— some are teaching that well-behaved men, 
or ignorant heathen at least, may be at peace 
with God without a new birth ; and many more 
are teaching, that infants at least may be ac- 
cepted children of God without this new birth. 
But the word of Christ stands sure for all man- 
kind, " Ye must be born again." This is the 
only way of life, for infants or adults. 

For, " as through one man sin entered into 
the world, and death through sin ; even so death 
passed unto all men, so that all have sinned." 
Something certainly " passed " from the one 
man Adam " unto all men " ; although our new 
creed-makers dare not lisp a word of it. Some 



12 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

destitution is on us in consequence of Adam's 
fall ; and he is a full-fledged Pelagian who de- 
nies it. While he is assuredly an encourager 
of Pelagians, who timidly omits from his faith, 
or his terms of fellowship, the assertion of so 
simple a truth as this, which every Arminian as 
well as Calvinist, yea all Evangelical Christen- 
dom, accepts. 

It was not sin that " passed " unto all. The 
assertion of that error killed Old Calvinism 
out of the Pilgrim Creed, as it has now pretty 
much killed it out of the world. It was " death " 
that " passed " ; so the apostle declares. And 
this " death " means not only dying but spiritual 
death, the loss of the divine nature, fallen na- 
ture's destitution of the Spirit power, our want 
of spiritual life in God. This is the " death " 
that has " passed unto all 99 Adam's seed, whether 
young or old ; — whereupon, or so that, or in 
consequence, " all have sinned." This we might 
easily show, by a full exegesis and exposition 
of the whole passage, which lies all prepared 
before us. 

The denial that such a " death" has passed 
unto all, that indeed anything of consequence 
has passed over from our first parents to the 
race, — this is the very kernel of heresy called 
Pelagianism, which has troubled every genera- 



Vital Orthodoxy. 13 



tion of the church since Augustine's day, and 
never more so than now. The condemnation 
of it is what gives power to the New Calvinism, 
as it does to all forms of Evangelical Chris- 
tianity. A neglect to condemn it is what kills 
the " New Creed " as effectually as Old Cal- 
vinism is killed. 

Pelagius held, that " we derive no corruption 
[or other impediment] from the fall of Adam, 
but are born as pure [and capable] as Adam 
came from God's hand ; that mankind there- 
fore [as born] are capable of arriving to the 
highest piety by the use of their natural facul- 
ties, with only the external aids of Provi- 
dence ; and they have no need of the internal suc- 
cors of the divine Spirit, no necessity of divine 
grace " to renew, and sanctify, and save the in- 
dividual soul. (See Mosheim's Eccle. Hist. 
Vol. I. p. 391.) 

Very many successors of Pelagius hold, that 
though all mankind did indeed fall in Adam, 
yet the Redemption of Christ has restored the 
whole race to the primitive state of Adam ; so 
that each child begins life as pure, and capable, 
and well endowed as Adam began. And they 
teach, that on this ground every infant that dies 
soon enough is in and of itself, without renewal, 
an heir of eternal glory. 



14 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

No wonder that there follow on after this, 
such doctrines as self-regeneration, moral in- 
stead of spiritual renewal, a new life " off-and- 
on," a future probation, or universal restora- 
tion. Such Pelagian views many are now 
treating as quite orthodox. But the Evangel- 
ical Faith of the Pilgrims draws a sharp line 
here, and countenances nothing which fails to 
teach, the necessity of a personal " renewing of 
the Holy Ghost " to prepare any individual for 
death. To talk very piously of a general work 
of grace and redemption, that recovers man- 
kind in the lump, and starts us all off right, as 
though there had been no fall ; so that, there 
is no insisting on a renewing work of grace as 
essential for every single soul; all this is but 
the old Pelagianism in a new cloak, — and a 
very thin covering at that. 

The new creed mentions the need of such 
general grace to bless mankind as a whole, even 
saying " there is no salvation — except through 
God's redeeming grace." Indeed ! and does 
not every Pelagian say that ? But where in 
that creed is the sharp-cut announcement, that 
each and every soul must experience in himself 
that renewing grace, to fit him for death and for 
glory ? It is not there ! The Pilgrims' Faith 
in this respect is clean gone from that docu- 



Vital Orthodoxy. 



IS 



ment ; and laxness and indifference over the 
fate of souls must follow in its train. 

It is true we are told, that " our first parents 
fell," and "that all men are alienated from 
God," — mark it, " all men " — all mature men 
— not all mankind, in nature or by birth. So 
that, it is presumable from this creed, that all 
children in growing up to be men, by disobe- 
dience fall as " our first parents by disobedi- 
ence fell," away from that holiness " in the 
image of God " in which "man was made," and 
in which all children are thus presumed to begin. 

Since the error here is that of omission, no 
doubt the orthodox view may be read into this 
language ; but it can more easily be ruled out, 
in accordance with the very reading. And, such 
is human nature, that most assuredly this for- 
mula will be used more and more extensively in 
this legitimate and strict construction of it, to 
the exclusion of the old Evangelical doctrine, 
that mankind are fallen in Adam. Every one 
knows, how all other peculiarities of Evangelic 
Faith will gradually disappear along with this. 
Indeed, the foretokenings of such disappear- 
ance are evident in this very creed. 

We are indeed told about " saving men," 
about conviction, repentance, " renewing 
grace," becoming " children of God," growing 



1 6 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

in piety, and " preserving grace," for such as 
choose these blessings. And every Pelagian 
also uses just such talk, and teaches in Scrip- 
ture language all pious duties and privileges for 
the well disposed, as helping on the better to 
future reward. But the personal pinch of the 
truth, the assertion of the indispensableness to 
every person of such an inward work of grace 
begun now, in order to the attainment of that 
" eternal life " here promised, — this is all left 
out. 

" Everlasting punishment " is indeed once 
mentioned, as a final issue, which somebody 
may possibly reach. But what that is, or who 
is in danger of it, — whether any human being 
at all has such risk, or only " the devil and his 
angels " (as some believe), — nothing is said. 
An eternal ruin merely " possible " (as one 
prominently announces the new faith,) — to 
some being or other, it is not said whom, — is 
this the Pilgrim Doctrine, that alarmed and 
saved men ? Not at all. That did not fail to 
proclaim (what a very few added words here 
would have done,) that no soul here unrenewed 
will ever enter heaven. If this is true, what a 
fatal omission to leave it out of our creed ! 
What a lullaby is thus sung over the grave of 
souls ! 



Vital Orthodoxy. 



I? 



Dr. George E. Ellis, the venerable Unitarian 
leader, in 1857, in his volume entitled "A 
Half-Century of the Unitarian Controversy," 
p. 46, states as the great foundation doctrkie 
as to which Unitarians stand squarely opposed 
to Orthodoxy, — " (1) The disability of human 
nature in consequence of Adam's sin " ; &c. 
" Unitarianism," he says, " denies that these 
are doctrines of the gospel, and offers very dif- 
ferent doctrines sustained by Scripture in their 
place." About eighty years have now passed 
from the beginning of that " Unitarian Contro- 
versy" ; and it has ended in a New Creed set 
forth by the "Orthodox Party"; which drops 
out all assertion and all mention of that funda- 
mental doctrine controverted, — " the disability 
of human nature in consequence of Adanis sin" 
This is indeed progress ; but is it in the right 
direction ? 

There is no " controversy " now. No ! we 
have an <6 irenic" creed. And some will even 
blame us for drawing attention to these facts, for 
fear the lovely peace might be disturbed. In- 
deed, we might blame ourselves for controvert- 
ing anything, were the issue any less than a 
fundamental one. Truly a happy thing it is, 
that all the Evangelical denominations are 
learning to " dwell together in unity " ; and we 
2 



1 8 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

would be the last to disturb this blessed 
brotherhood of the saints. But when the com- 
mon Evangelical Faith of all christians is jeop- 
ardized by a surrender at our own headquarters 
of the basal truth, lying at the foundation of all 
orthodoxy, namely, that mankind are by nature a 
fallen race, — then we feel obliged to conquer 
our placidity, and do as the apostle exhorts us, 
— " contend earnestly for the faith." {Jude 9.) 

" Death," spiritual death, "passed unto all 
men." Here is the sheet-anchor, that holds to 
her moorings the Pilgrim Ark of the Faith. 
This must be the key-note wherewith to rally 
the sacramental host. The Old Calvinist doc- 
trine of " original sin " is buried ; the spiritual 
" death " of all, is the Scripture term that with 
propriety takes its place. Our native ruin not 
an onerous infliction of God, but only a neces- 
sitated destitution of man, — not an imposed 
character but simply a " privative " state, — 
not sin but the absence of life, God's Spirit 
banished from the soul till we welcome him 
back ; — this Bible view of our fallen nature, 
which Jonathan Edwards so happily sounded 
forth, is the very gist of the old Orthodox 
Faith, which is to save us in this perilous hour. 

This puts the subject of human depravity, 
and of regeneration, in a far more intelligible 



Vital Orthodoxy. 



'9 



light than is commonly reached. Since each 
man's fallen condition begins in depn-vation, or 
loss of the Spirit's inward presence and aid, — 
it must go on to deprivation of the moral char- 
acter, under the temptations of life. The un- 
restrained soul presses naturally into sin from 
its very first action ; and there follows on a 
greater and greater depth of iniquity ; so that 
we are all by nature not only spiritually dead, 
but " dead in trespasses and sins." On the 
other hand, in order to deliverance from this 
ruined condition, each individual must not only 
have those sins pardoned, but must first and 
foremost have that defective state of spiritual 
death remedied, by the return of the Holy 
Spirit renewing his soul. To have back with 
us the indwelling Spirit, is to be "born again." 
How simple ! This greatly reduces the mys- 
tery concerning regeneration, which has be- 
fogged so many minds, causing unbelief and 
neglect of it in many quarters. 

This view puts prominent in our thoughts, 
as Scripture does, the matter of life and death, 
of an indwelling or a banished Spirit, — instead 
of the cold distinctions of moral government. 
This touches the vital constitutional nature of 
our being, and indicates a true Vital Theology, 
in place of the mere Moral Theology that has 



20 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



come near foundering our Ship of Zion. Let 
us hold firm this pivotal point of all the old 
Evangelic Truth ; not sin but spiritual " death 
passed unto all men." Let us write it on our 
banners ; thus only is the Gospel of the King- 
dom safe. 



The Doom of Sin. 



2i 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DOOM OF SIN. 

" For as many as have sinned without law shall also 
perish without law ; and as many as have sinned under 
law shall be judged by law." Rom. 2:12. 

There are two distinct conditions of man- 
kind, widely different in their relations and 
their destinies. There are those that are 
"without law," and those that are "under law." 
Since our first parents fell, we are all a fallen 
race. But mankind are either (1) Simply fallen, 
and left there ; or (2) Fallen and blest with 
offers of recovery. 

The offers of recovery come to men only in the 
Bible, prefigured in the Old Testament, devel- 
oped in the New. These Scriptures are there- 
fore called the Word of God, his ordinances or 
statutes, or simply his Law. The whole is a 
Revelation of the Gospel. To "sin without 
law " is to sin without gospel, without known 
offers of salvation. The gentiles are not in 
every sense without law or knowledge of duty : 
" These not having law are law to themselves ; 



22 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

in that they show the work of the law written 
in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness 
therewith, and their thoughts one with another 
accusing or else excusing them." (v. 14, 15.) 
But as related to redemption, they are without 
law or revelation. 

It does not answer to say, that redemption 
was meant for all, or that the gospel offer is 
for all. It is ready to go to all, but it has not 
come to all. (Ac. 13 : 26.) Some are exempt 
from the gospel ; exempt alike as to obligation 
and as to consequence. It will not do to deny 
such a separate class or condition among man- 
kind ; for the apostle positively assures us, that 
there are those that "have sinned without 
law," and have a destiny accordingly " without 
law," or outside of the gospel provision and the 
gospel judgment. 

In this condition of exemption from* Bible 
attainment and Bible condemnation, are found 
the heathen world ; and also the infant world ; 
in fact all to whom no offers of recovery from 
the fall have come. Individuals very simply 
pass from this condition of ignorance to the 
other condition of enlightenment. Any heathen 
when distinctly taught concerning Christ, has 
forever passed from heathenism into the privi- 
leges and responsibilities or Christianity. And 



The Doom of Sin. 



23 



every child, when clearly informed of the gos- 
pel offer, comes at once within its provisions 
and its retributions. 

"Go ye," said Christ, "into all the world, 
and preach the gospel to the whole creation ; 
he that [or whoever thus preached to] believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved, but he that dis- 
believed! shall be condemned." (Mark 16 : 
16.) This gospel salvation or condemnation is 
promised or threatened to mankind, only so far 
as they have received the preaching of the 
word. A careful attention to this truth, would 
save us from many false doctrines and foolish 
theorizings concerning heathen and infants, 
which are prevalent in our day. No heathen, 
no infant, can ever be condemned under the 
gospel; his only evil is natural destitution 
under the fall, with whatever of voluntary sin 
and sorrow may follow thereupon. 

" When the Son of man . . . shall sit upon 
the throne of his glory, and before him shall 
be gathered all the nations, . . . then shall he 
say . . . I was an hungered and ye gave me 
meat, (or) /was thirsty and ye gave me no drink. 
. . . Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of 
these my brethren, ye did it not to me. . . . 
And these shall go away into eternal punish- 
ment, but the righteous into eternal life." 



24 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

(Mat. 25 : 31-56.) — There is a judgment for 
every human being ; but this scene of division, 
and trial, and award, is plainly the judgment of 
Christendom, and these are the issues reached 
under men's treatment of Christ. 

This is obviously the settlement of accounts, 
under the commission given in the previously 
cited passage ; and endless punishment or life 
is here pronounced upon those of "all the na- 
tions " who have believed or disbelieved the gos- 
pel preached to them. Scarcely anything is 
more strange, than the use of such passages 
by many as if applying to heathen and to 
infants, to whom no knowledge of Christ has 
ever come ! 

It is clear, that a large part of mankind are 
exempt from gospel responsibility and destiny ; 
and neither the glory or the doom pronounced 
by revelation upon its subjects, has any appli- 
cation to them. And yet, the all-merciful 
Father may extend gospel blessings to individ- 
uals outside the reach of revelation. By his 
special and sovereign grace he may apply his 
renewing Spirit, in the restoration of the di- 
vine nature lost, to any human soul, young or 
old, as Infinite Love may choose ; and he may 
even give us assurances in his word, of such 
electing mercies in store. 



The Doom of Sin. 



25 



Such assurances we have. Peter was taught, 
through the case of Cornelius, that " God is 
no respecter of persons ; but in every nation 
he that feareth him, and worketh righteous- 
ness, is acceptable to him." (Ac. 10 : 35.) 
And Christ has assured us, that " Many shall 
come from the east and the west, and shall sit 
down in the kingdom of heaven." (Mat. 8 : 
11.) Moreover, we are happily taught as the 
gospel ordinance, from Abraham, through Pen- 
tecost, unto all the ages, " The promise is unto 
you and to your children." (Ac. 2 : 39.) So 
our little ones yet untaught, as well as many 
ignorant heathen, shall find a home in glory. 
" Thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. 
Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy 
sight." (Mat. 11 : 25.) 

Thus assured is the electing grace of God, 
saving poor ignorant souls; that are thus 
" born not of the will of man, but of God." 
(Jn. 1 : 13.) Here the Pilgrim Faith takes its 
stand in sanctified Calvinism, and leaves our 
Arminian brethren behind. But it does not 
become us here, to go guessing beyond what 
is written, or pretending to tell how many will 
thus be reached. Some profess to know all 
about it, saying tfiat God will glorify every 



26 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

heathen (indeed every ignorant man) who 
follows his conscience. Better say with Christ, 
every one so following conscience that through 
the Spirit he at length " believeth " ; — and it 
is hard to believe "without a preacher. " (Rom. 
10 : 14.) Shall we paralyze the missions which 
our Lord commands, by assigning to heathen- 
dom a wider gate and a broader road to heaven, 
than he has prescribed for us ? 

Many others have so far advanced beyond 
Bible teaching, as to be sure, that not only " the 
promise is to you and to your children" as em- 
braced in your covenant faith, but also to every 
child or youth who has not refused Christ. So 
that, our younger children, without conversion 
or even parental consecration, are treated as 
heirs of glory ; while our other children, a few 
days or hours older, because taught in Sunday 
iSchool or elsewhere and not yet converted, are 
regarded as heirs of perdition ! If ever a doc- 
trine of more horrid discrimination than this 
was taught, it is beyond our knowledge. Any 
theory of universal salvation for some particular 
class or age, makes God a respecter of persons, 
and is worse than a theory of universal salva- 
tion for all. Childhood does indeed often pass 
in a day, from nature's ungospelized destina- 
tion to christian hope or* condemnation ; but 



The Doom of Sin. 



27 



into the latter ics passage cannot be from a 
pure or sanctified state before. 

Why should we paralyze effort for the en- 
lightenment and conversion of children, by 
teaching that, as long as they can be kept back 
from positive knowledge and refusal of Christ, 
they are in the broad-road to heaven ! Why 
should we horrify human thought by teaching, 
that all the offspring of profligacy, if hurried 
quickly out of life, — that all the pagan infants, 
if thrown soon enough to the crocodiles, go 
straight to the arms of Jesus ; whereas, if suf- 
fered to live, their first sin dooms them to eter- 
nal torment, which most of them reach ? What 
a premium on infanticide ! What a bounty 
offered to prostitution and shame ! The privi- 
lege of filling heaven by crime, faster than God 
can do it by virtuous parentage and pious train- 
ing ! It is not a wonder that with such dogmas 
taught all around us, as if Evangelical truth, 
religion itself is brought into contempt. 

The Pilgrim Faith of the Fathers has no 
such monstrous, heart-rending discrimination 
between the children of a family. It teaches 
that all are fallen creatures, but destined to 
nothing but a fair, and just, and humane des- 
tination ; and that, though one of our children 
may by knowledge attain to a higher responsi- 



28 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

bility and positive condemnation, yet he is not 
that moment losing a paradise of glory, — for 
he never had it to lose. Let us keep to this 
old orthodox doctrine of the Bible \ and the 
sound sense and sensibility of men will honor 
us, and the cause of religion will be secure. 

What have we here claimed ? We have 
claimed for the true orthodox faith, an igno- 
rance about individual destiny, so far as not 
revealed ; so that we cannot affirm that all of 
this class, or all of that condition, are chosen 
of God. We only say, Whosoever believeth 
shall be saved, — the believer and his children 
having a privilege together in this offer, — and 
no unacting infant being " under law," or by any 
possibility subject to gospel condemnation or 
wrath. So far God has spoken to us. All else 
we leave to His Sovereign Grace. It were 
well, if we would all consent not to be wise 
above what is written. 

Since, as we have seen, there are two con- 
ditions of mankind, the ignorant and the en- 
lightened, and since their responsibilities and 
their destinations are quite different (except as 
modified by sovereign grace ;) — it may seem a 
venturesome thing for us to instruct children 
or heathen people, lest we bring them into a 
worse condemnation. There is indeed a risk 



The Doom of Sin. 



2Cj 



in the coming of light. But that risk God him- 
self has taken ; and has bidden us, Go preach, 
in his name. We must obey our marching 
orders, and leave all to him. So great is the 
glory reached by a soul brought to God, that 
He has ventured even the existence of sin and 
evil in his universe, to attain it ; and has even 
given his only Son to accomplish it. Heaven's 
glories will more than repay all the risks and 
wrongs of the universe ; and since God takes 
the responsibility, we may well venture all in 
the preaching of " Christ and him crucified." 

What has most dishonored and discredited 
the Old Calvinism, and now almost banished 
it from the world ? It was its seeming method, 
of lumping the whole human race, both igno- 
rant and enlightened, in one promiscuous con- 
dition and destiny, contrary to all ideas of fair- 
ness and justice in the human soul. It was 
the attempt to arraign all heathendom and all 
infancy in the same process of final judgment 
with Christendom, in plainest violation of New 
Testament teaching; which declares that "as 
many as have sinned without law shall also 
perish without law, and as many as have 
sinned under law shall be judged by law." 
The "wrath of God and of the Lamb," the 
" everlasting punishment pronounced on the 



30 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

rejectors of Christ, who (doing no kindness to 
his cause or people) did it not to him, — this 
penalty of judgment " under law" or revela- 
tion of Christ, is nowhere pronounced upon 
those who are indeed fallen but " without law," 
and fated only to such evil as fallen nature 
(without revelation) may bring. With this un- 
seemly blemish removed, the New Calvinism 
stands vindicated and triumphant in the faith 
of men! 



The Power of an Endless Life, 



3i 



CHAPTER III. 

THE POWER OF AN ENDLESS LIFE. 

" For it is impossible for those — once having been 
enlightened, and having tasted the heavenly gift, and 
been made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and having 
tasted as good the word of God, and the powers of 
the coming world-age, and (then) having fallen away, 
— again to renew (them) unto repentance ; they having 
re-crucified to themselves the Son of God, and openly 
stigmatized him . . . Our Lord — ariseth another priest, 
who is made, not after the law of a carnal command- 
ment, but after the power of an endless life." 
Heb. 6 : 4-6, and 7 : 14-16. 

We here learn several things, among which 
are the following: (1) That the renewal of 
an individual from his fallen state, is "unto 
repentance" and forsaking of sin, and "end- 
less life " in Christ. 

(2) That "the power of this endless life" is 
in Christ our High-priest and sacrifice ; who in 
being " crucified " hath obtained it for us as 
" the gift of God" (Rom. 6 : 23,) namely, the 
indwelling presence of " the Holy Ghost " 
(Lu. n : 13,) the * Spirit of life " (Rom. 8 : 



32 



The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



2,) the life-giving or " quickening Spirit." 
(i Cor. 15 : 45.) 

(3) That these " powers of the world to 
come," this bestowment of endless-ness of 
being, may be " tasted " and yet " fallen away " 
from. Or, otherwise expressed, that one may 
be ''enlightened" by a taste of "the good 
word of God," thus coming " under the law" 
of gospel judgment, — and may even further 
have "tasted the heavenly gift " itself, the gift 
of the Spirit, being thus made in some sense 
" a partaker of the Holy Ghost," so far as a 
taste goes, that is, so far as that Spirit thus 
known furnishes the endless " power of the 
world to come," — and yet may fail of a per- 
fect permanent renewal of his nature unto 
the "endless life"; he not yet being fully a 
" partaker of the divine nature " (2 Pet. 1 : 4,) 
by the actual leading of the Spirit into son-ship 
by the new-birth. (Rom. 8 : 14.) 

(4) We seem to be plainly taught, that such 
a failure or 1 falling away ' from gospel light, 
and from the 4 taste 1 or beginning of the 
Spirit's work in the soul, leaves one in a help- 
less, hopeless condition ; because he has thus 
"re-crucified in himself" the crucified Pur- 
chaser of the Spirit, thus stigmatizing, and 
blaspheming, and quenching the Spirit himself, 



The Power of an Endless Life. 33 

the very means of life. So that, he "hath 
never remission (or release), but is guilty of 
an eternal sin." (Mar. 3 : 29, Revision.) 
' 4 For if we sin wilfully, after that we have 
come to the knowledge of the truth, [and have 
thus come ' under the law ' of gospel judg- 
ment,] there remaineth no more a sacrifice for 
sins, [no more to us a crucifixion-purchased 
Spirit to renew,] but a certain fearful expecta- 
tion of . judgment and fiery indignation which 
shall devour the adversary. . . . (For he) hath 
done despite to the Spirit ol Grace. " (Heb. 10 : 
26-29.) 

It will not do, then, for a fallen mortal to re- 
ject light, and spurn the very Spirit of God ; 
which might renew him fully back into a par- 
ticipation of the divine nature, and into a 
promised " eternal life." It will not do thus 
barely to " taste the heavenly gift" of the Holy 
Ghost, thus only to partake of him so far as his 
enlightenment brings persistence of being in sin, 
— " the powers of the world to come " without 
its saving "life." Adam's loss of the Spirit 
could be repaired ; but not ours. He had the 
Spirit at first, not as the incarnated crucifixion- 
bought Spirit of Christ, (Rom. 8 : 9, Gal. 
4 : 6, &c.,) which " was not yet given, because 
that Jesus was not yet glorified." (Jn. 7 :39«) 
3 



34 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

When we re-crucify him, we do " despite to the 
Spirit of his grace/'' and must perish in our sins. 

Thus have we in Christ alone the clear 
revelation of immortal glory; since none but 
he can bring to us " the power of an endless 
life." And thus also, along with this and in 
consequence of it, we find, brought vividly be- 
fore us, the certainty of an everlasting punish- 
ment. It is here seen as not only " prepared 
for the devil and his angels," (Mat. 25: 41,) 
whose endless torment is so positively set forth^ 
(Rev. 20: 10,14,) — but also as reached by 
some (alas !) of human kind, whose endless 
requiem is : " Good were it for that man if he 
had not been born" ! (Mat. 26 : 24.) We learn 
this here, not as a bare "possibility" of danger, 
as some are placidly putting it now, but as a dire 
necessity of rejected and abused Christianity. 

It is fiere, in the New Testament alone, that 
this fearful doctrine is distinctly revealed. The 
Old Scriptures have few clear hints of endless- 
ness in a " world to come." It is when the 
bleeding Lamb of Calvary comes in sight, the 
tender loving Savior of souls, that the " wrath 
of the Lamb " comes also in view. (Rev. 6 : 
16.) O ! the wrath of the Lamb ! How fear- 
fully enhanced are the terrors of doom, to one 
that learns of Christ and rejects him. No such 



The Power of an Endless Life. 35 

awful fate is announced for others, who " per- 
ish without law." The inherited ruin of the 
fall is as a trifle, compared with the endless 
misery of apostasy from Christ. 

It is at this point that Orthodox Faith has 
been most sadly disfigured, by the attempt for- 
merly made to exaggerate the natural doom of 
man as a fallen creature. We cannot too 
strongly depict the New Testament revelation 
of future misery for evangelized, gospel-hard- 
ened men, whether under the old covenant or 
the new. But the fate of the ignorant masses 
of mankind without an offered gospel, the Old 
Testament revelation concerning gentile na- 
tions, is chiefly of misery and disaster for sin 
in the present world, with the cloak of a pity- 
ing silence drawn over the results beyond. 
Why ? Because it is not needful for us (who 
alone have the revelation), to be told fully just 
the degree of evil coming to them who have it 
not. We know that life to them, with no good 
hope of eternal life, is sad enough ; we need 
not try to enhance the evil of their situation by 
adding pictures of endless misery for them, con- 
cerning which the Bible tells never a word. 

We are not to be led to work for the 
heathen by exaggerated views of their dreadful 
hereafter, about which Scripture is silent ; but 



36 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

rather by their present needs, and by vivid 
conceptions of the everlasting " glory, honor, 
and immortality " to which the gospel can raise 
them, and about which Scripture is eloquent 
and clear. It was the mistake of the past, to 
harrow up the feelings of our civilized commu- 
nities, by horrible representations of the igno- 
rant millions, left all unreached by any gospel 
offer of help, — yet doomed in the fall, the 
whole of them, young and old (it was said,) by 
our all-loving heavenly Father, to unutterable 
torments through unending ages, in a wretched 
existence kept going forever for that very pur- 
pose ! Is it a wonder, that such a miserable 
burlesque of the Bible, has sometimes killed out 
men's faith in God's own Truth itself ? 

In recoil from these sad fancies, so dishonor- 
able to God, so shocking to man, those who see 
no other relief proclaim a partial universalis™, 
for this class or for that, or go to inventing 
some new dogma of future probation in another 
life for those who have had (they say) "no fair 
chance " here. Others begin to preach " ever- 
lasting hope " for the lost ; and others still en- 
courage thoughts of final " restoration " from 
perdition. Anything and everything is con- 
trived, to be rid of the eternal hell of the heathen 
and the ignorant, which is a mere contrivance of 



The Power of an Endless Life* 37 

the old scholastics, who tried to be wise above 
what is written. And in the attempt to hide 
that ghost, the sad peril is, that all sound ortho- 
doxy, and the Christian Faith itself, will go by 
the board. 

But what if it is at length seen to be only a 
ghost, and no reality ? What if a more careful 
and candid search of the Scriptures reveals the 
fact, that the doom of ignorant and heathen 
souls ("beaten with few stripes" compara- 
tively) is different from the endless misery of 
apostate rejecters of Christ ; and that nothing 
awaits them but a fair, and honorable treat- 
ment at the hands of God ? Then all these 
modern vagaries of doctrine vanish in thin 
smoke ; and the Faith of the Pilgrims, purified 
and fair, " the Faith once delivered to the 
saints," stands forth vindicated in the sober 
convictions of men. There is no way so simple 
to maintain the Old Orthodoxy, as thus to 
brush away, as we are trying to do, the cob- 
webs of error that have been woven about it. 
This is at the same time true Conservatism and 
genuine Progress. 

Mark well, that we here paint the lot of the 
heathen in no rosy light. It is not a state of 
salvation, or even of quietude. It is a lost and 
ruined condition ; involving the depn-vation of 
all that holiness and happiness and that eternal 



38 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

life in God, which might have come from the 
original Eden purity preserved; to which is 
added the moral depra-vation arising from long 
perpetuated sin. The human race in its fallen 
nature perishes, from all that nobler destiny of 
ever enduring blessedness which might have 
been attained. How many we find nowadays 
citing the language of Paul, as if it read, -"as 
many as have sinned without law shall also be 
saved without law " ! But we must adhere to 
the sad truth which he proclaims, that they 
"shall perish without law." 

In the honorable endeavor after a better ad- 
justment of views concerning retribution, a 
line must somewhere be drawn, between what is 
soundly orthodox or evangelical on the one 
hand, — though diverging, it may be, in some 
respects from the ordinary statements, — and 
that on the other hand which passes the line 
of orthodoxy, and is unsafe and unallowable. 
This line of division must be this : All evan- 
gelical faith teaches the remediless ruin of all 
persons dying unrenewed. All maintaining that 
can be tolerated, all denying that must be dis- 
carded. Eternal hope, future probation, and 
every form of restoration, are thus outside of 
the evangelical pale. And nothing must here 
be countenanced, which contravenes the above 
given test. 



Reserved from Decay, 



39 



CHAPTER IV. 

RESERVED FROM DECAY. 

" If God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast 
them down to tartarus, ... to be reserved unto judg- 
ment. . . . The Lord knoweth how ... to reserve the 
unrighteous unto the day of judgment punished." 2 Pet. 
2 : 4, 9. 

Every human being who has attained to a 
knowledge of duty, has committed sin. Con- 
science teaches him that he must suffer for it ; 
and that all the unadjusted wrongs of this life 
must be met and redressed in an existence be- 
yond death. Men must survive the grave, or 
there is no just God of goodness and truth, 
securing adequate compensation. This is the 
verdict of reason as well as of Scripture, and 
cannot be gainsaid. 

But how long ? How long ? Ah ! this is the 
question upon which reason gives no light. 
And the Bible lisps not a word upon it, as re- 
lates to simple fallen nature. Only in the New 
Kingdom of Redemption and Gospel Judg- 
ment does Christ come, bringing " life and im- 
mortality to light." (2 Tim, 1 : 10.) 



40 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



UN-mortality is a sure thing for moral agents ; 
who evidently have not yet reached the full and 
fair reward for all their deeds " done in the 
body." The soul cannot expire along with the 
mortal body ; for character must live on, till 
every deed has received its "just recompense 
of reward." But iM-mortaiity is not so certain ; 
endlessness of conscious being can only be proved 
by direct positive revelation. And no such hu- 
man immortality is revealed to us, except as a 
preserving mercy or a re-serving wrath, in con- 
nection with the Gospel Kingdom and Judg- 
ment. (2. Pet. 2 : 4, 9, above.) 

We have been astonished to notice, how 
learned men generally discuss the two ques- 
tions, (1) of a simple future existence, and (2) 
of an endless immortality, as if they were one 
and the same thing ; whereas they are entirely 
distinct. Many pile up their proofs of " immor- 
tality " as if necessarily endless, with scarcely a 
word of the whole showing anything more than 
continuance after death / There is no argument 
for more than this, except what Revelation ex- 
pressly declares. Yet alas ! some of our lead- 
ers are now trying to cut off even this argument, 
by denying that the Scripture word " eternal " 
has any reference to duration, or to anything 
but the kind of futurity. What a brazen igno- 



Reserved from Decay. 



4i 



ranee of the Greek language does this display ! 
What a cruel attempt to rob us of our " eter- 
nal " heaven ! 

From the Bible, our only authority, how little 
do we know of any eternity for the unreserved, 
— any endless immortality for mere fallen men 
in nature, " without law " or knowledge of sal- 
vation S We talk very volubly and sometimes 
flippantly about eternal ages, and infinite dura- 
tion for all, just as if we knew all about it ; 
whereas, eternity and infinity are very vast and 
very abstruse ideas, entirely beyond our grasp ; 
and we know nothing about them in application 
to any creature, except as we are told by the 
great Revealer. Let us be humble, and own 
our ignorance, and not be inventing eternities 
where they are not declared ; especially when 
we find ourselves thus involving our God in 
the grossest cruelty and injustice, and exposing 
our blessed faith to deserved criticism, and 
even to rejection and contempt. 

Along with what Scripture teaches, the only 
help we have is a careful analysis of the human 
mind, its processes and laws ; such that, by this 
correct mental philosophy, we may rightly inter- 
pret Scripture. Here has been the great source 
of error, — not in the gospel doctrine itself, 
but in the false philosophy with which it has 



42 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

been mixed. It has been thought that Plato 
taught the intrinsic impossibility of decay to a hu- 
man soul, by reason of its very nature or con- 
struction; though it can easily be shown that 
this was not his view. This supposed idea of 
the heathen Platonic Philosophy, along with 
others of its ideas, was early introduced by the 
Fathers into the Church, corrupting the sim- 
plicity of Gospel Truth ; though it may readily 
be made plain, that the earliest and apostolic 
fathers held a different view, the very view we 
shall present. 

We will here give a brief hint of investiga- 
tions, elsewhere fully developed, which we have 
room here only to allude to. 

When we carefully scrutinize the human soul, 
we find, in place of the dictum cited above, 
that there are two foundation principles and two 
opposing laws of mental action, that govern the 
conscious being and continuance of man : 

Two Foundation Principles. 
i . Moral action and character are the 
only ground of immortality for man, as dis- 
tinguished from the brutes. Not life, or longing, 
or power of thought, or reason even, but rational 
conscience or moral sense mainly, is what gives 
survival to humanity after death. 



Reserved from Decay, 



43 



2. Knowledge is power, not only of action, 
but of endurance for man. Moral action under 
clear instruction in duty, greatly deepens and 
perpetuates conscious character. Voluntary 
decision in view of revelation received eter- 
nalizes destiny, whether for good or for evil. 

Two Laws of Mental Action. 

1. The Law of Decay. This is universal 
through nature, and applies to all created things, 
to mind (unless counteracted) as truly as to 
other creations. This is utterly different from 
annihilation (or " conditional immortality,") 
which is a notion impossible to reason, con- 
trary to Scripture, and abhorrent to all sense 
of justice and propriety. There can be no end 
of being or of character ; but there can be 
decay of faculty and conscious experience. 

2. The counteracting Law of Persistence, 
through Moral Activity under Light. This is 
reserving power, " the power of the world to 
come." Every exercise of the soul (like exer- 
cise of the body) strengthens, develops, gives 
persistence to it. The stronger the moral char- 
acter, whether good or evil, the longer it holds 
out against tendencies to decay. Gross viola- 
tion of conscience under the clear light of 
truth, must perpetuate the sinning, suffering 



44 The Pilgri7n Faith Maintained. 

existence. Wilful rejection of an offered Gos- 
pel eternalizes the misery of the soul. 

But all ruin, instead of being attended with 
Growth (as very commonly taught,) is under 
the universal natural law of Decay, by means 
of mental inaction in an imprisoned environ- 
ment ; this belittling tendency being only so 
far counteracted, as is necessary for the ends 
of justice and good government. To a creature 
of little action and trifling guilt, going out of 
life unsaved, the Law of Decay is doubtless 
left to work out its speedy result, the paralysis 
of a consciousness hardly at all developed. 
But on the other hand, this Law of Decay is, 
by preserving, invigorating grace, fully over- 
come for ransomed souls ; the " everlasting 
life " of holy activity being thus an everlasting 
Growth, in glory and joy. 

So then, the long continued endurance of a 
sinful being, against the tendencies of decay, 
is due to heightened sinful activity under light 
abused. And this is under Providence a re- 
serving of the sinner, through the laws of his be- 
ing, to a full 6< recompense of reward." (Heb. 
2:2.) This reserving power is spoken of in 
the passage at the head of the present chapter ; 
where it is given as the experience, first of 
fallen angels, and then of fallen men. 



Reserved from Decay, 



45 



Lest any should vainly hope to escape the 
full deserved punishment, under the inevitable 
law of decay, we are there alarmed with the as- 
sertion, that the infinite God " knoweth how " to 
reserve men from decay ; — from what else could 
he reserve them ? He has not fashioned beings 
without means, within their very constitution, 
to hold them to complete account. In fact, it 
was not a capacity for decay that was wanting 
in man's nature, but it is a power to reserve or 
keep him from decay, that God " knoweth how" 
to devise and apply. And in case of great sin 
against great light abused, that reserving is said 
to be to an " eternal punishment." 

" Verily I say unto you, that all things will 
be remitted to the sons of men, (even) the 
sins and the blasphemies wherewithsoever they 
will blaspheme. But whosoever shall blas- 
pheme against the Holy Spirit hath never re- 
mission (or release), but is guilty of an eternal 
sin." (Mar. 3 : 28, 29.) When this word 
rendered remission is attached directly to the 
word sin, it implies "forgiveness," (as it is 
rendered in our version.) But when it is not 
directly applied to sin, it means simply " remis- 
sion " or release, deliverance, liberty, as rightly 
translated twice at Lu. 4: 18. So also the 
verb means release, let alone, or leave, (Lu. 13 : 
8, 35, 1 Cor. 7 : 11-13, &c.) 



46 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

In the passage before us, there seems to be 
a blending of the two uses, suggesting a two- 
foldness of remission or release for a sinner : 
(1) remission or forgiveness of his sin in this 
life, (2) remission or release of himself in the 
future life, — a ' letting go ' of the faculties to 
their own law of decay, without intervention 
of the divine reserving power or " power of the 
world to corned 

We are here taught, that the sin "against 
the Holy Ghost," the very Author of renewal 
for souls, is more fatal than any other sin, — 
as cutting one off from any means of renewal 
or relief forever. So that the person himself 
thus ruined fc< hath never release " in any sense, 
not even by a let-up of reserving activity ; but 
he must go on sinning and suffering forever, 
being " guilty of an eternal sin," or " exposed 
to an eternal malady," as it may be rendered. 
(See 1 Cor. 6 : 18, and Revision, Mar. 14: 64, 
margin.) For, as expressed in the parallel 
passage (Mat. 12: 32,) "It shall not be re- 
mitted to him, either in this world-age, or in 
that which is to come " ; that is ; it shall neither 
be remitted by forgiveness here, nor remitted 
by release from reserving wrath in the future 
state. 

Orthodoxy has puzzled over this passage 



Reserved from Decay. 



47 



more than almost any other. And it is made 
the grand bulwark of restoration theories. But 
here is shown a view of it, reasonable in itself, 
and consistent with all Scripture ; a view which 
fully sustains the Evangelical Faith, brushing 
away all the claimed suggestion of future proba- 
tion^ and substituting a suggestion of the reserv- 
ing power withdrawn, — the very view we are 
here proposing. Can a better exegesis be 
given ? If not, let this passage stand as our 
vindication in thus vindicating orthodoxy. 

The Gospel has a " Day of Judgment," to 
which its unjustified hearers are reserved, in the 
wisdom and justice of God. And all respon- 
sible beings are in some way judged. But how 
long is the conscious future of the ignorant 
and unevangelized reserved? Who knows ? It 
must, under the management of a good and 
righteous God, hold out till every wrong of life 
is redressed, — till every necessary end of moral 
government is secured, — till Jehovah is vindi- 
cated as a fair, and impartial, and beneficent 
Administrator of affairs. How long will that 
take ? Who knows ? 

The " perishing " of ignorant people in mere 
human nature, without the aggravations of 
abused and rejected grace, is mainly a loss of 
the glory that might be, and is never described 



48 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

as the endless misery of £< the devil and his 
angels." The poor fallen creatures of earth, 
without light and salvation, merely sink to a 
lower level in the creation, below the enduring 
heavenly destiny of God's own chosen sons 
and heirs. They are left like other and lower 
creatures of God, to run their little round of 
petty joys and sorrows, and get the good that 
is to be got in life, with no assurances concern- 
ing things beyond. 

They are not yet actually reduced to a higher 
race of brutes; but they are very "brutish." 
(Jer. 10 : 8, &c.) God's Spirit in leaving man 
at the fall, left behind its impress, as the natu- 
ral conscience, constituting man yet a moral 
agent, responsible, and capable of re-union to 
God. Were it not for that, redemption would 
have been impossible ; but with that alone, 
fallen man has no grasp on endless immortal- 
ity. " The power of an endless life " is not his ; 
even the eternalizing " powers of the world to 
come " are not reached. 

It is popular now to preach the immortality 
of the soul, the supposed conception of a Greek 
philosopher. And beautiful changes can be 
rung, and glowing poetry can be recited, on 
this transcendent theme, — the necessitated 
vitality of every child of Adam, without refer- 



Reserved from Decay. 



49 



ence to God's will, or his benevolent constitu- 
tion of things. But better far to us is the doc- 
trine of our Lord and his apostles, — concern- 
ing the saints as " absent from the body and 
present with the Lord," — and the great Resur- 
rection Day, when " all those (then) in the 
tombs shall hear his voice and shall come forth, 
they that have done good unto the resurrection 
of life, and they that have done ill unto the 
resurrection of judgment." (Jn. 5 : 28.) 

Under the new speculations of our times, 
little is now being said about the good old doc- 
trine of the Resurrection Day ; and it is not 
even mentioned as a coming event in our " New 
Creed " ; so little does the current faith depend 
upon it. But that grand doctrine of apostolic 
times teaches us, that it is not disembodied 
souls, as all sufficient in themselves, but glori- 
fied bodies, that are to be necessarily the con- 
servators of eternal action to us. We thus 
learn the great truth, that something more than 
mere supposed " immortality of the soul " is re- 
quired, to ensure the eternal conscious being of 
men ; that the mere fact of every moral agent's 
^-mortality or existence beyond death, does 
not alone insure his /^-mortality or endless 
activity, without some further reserving agency 
brought to bear. 

4 



50 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



So certain is it, that no simply fallen creature 
in nature's ignorance, is by any necessity of his 
being doomed to an endless consciousness in 
misery, — unless God has expressly said so ; 
which we nowhere find. 



Reserved from Decay, 



Si 



Extracts from the Works of Isaac Taylor. 

[We give the following citations, from this eminent 
and profound English writer of the past generation, 
whose teachings have been so widely accepted as most 
sound and valuable ; in order that our view presented 
in this chapter, concerning the proof of endless existence 
for a human being, may be seen to be no novel or im- 
mature notion, suited to startle an unaccustomed mind, 
— but a long settled result of the very best thinking.] 

" It is fearful, if we reflect upon what it im- 
plies, to bear relation, in any way, even re- 
motely, to infinitude. For who shall calculate 
the result of such a connexion ? How fearful 
then to carry infinity in our very bosoms ! to be 
wedded inseparably to that which has no 
bounds ! We may calmly survey all other prop- 
erties of human nature, and may admire the 
skill with which its several functions are com- 
bined. But shall we dare steadily to fix the 
eye upon that yet undeveloped property which 
lurks beneath the fine machinery of life ? Shall , 
we gaze upon this faculty of endless existence 
— faculty that is now but just waking itself 
from the torpor of its birth, and that will go on 
expanding its vigor, and springing up yet young 
and hale, after it has outlived the stars ? In 
comparison with this power of ' eternal life/ all 
powers are nothing. Or should we not rather 



52 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

say, that every faculty which is linked to this, 
borrows from it an incalculable importance ? 

" Our faith in immortality actually takes its 
stand on divine testimony ', rather than on ab- 
struse reasons. In truth, we need this testi- 
mony to put an end to some doubts which 
reason could never solve. There are lines of 
argument, which, although they might seem 
fairly to establish the doctrine of a life after 
the dissolution of the body, would not abso- 
lutely include the notion — amazing idea ! — 
of endless existence. It is one thing to 
awake at death to a new life; and another to 
inherit absolutely a never-ending life. 

" The many physical analogies which indicate 
the law of a renewal of functions, in other 
forms, after long periods or torpor or decay \ 
would not necessarily imply more than that man^ 
the noblest of animals should re-appear also on 
the stage of action, and pass through a cen- 
tury or more of transformations. The same 
may be said of the common expectation of man- 
kind, and of the argument usually drawn (and 
very conclusively) from the notion of good gov- 
eminent, which requires another state, wherein 
may be vindicated the great axioms of truth and 
virtue, so much obscured as they are by the 
events of the present state. Less than eternity 



Reserved from Decay. 



53 



might suffice for restoring order to the moral 
system, according to human ideas of what jus- 
tice demands. 

"All these notions or conclusions, though 
they put contempt upon the gross error of the 
atheist, will scarcely be deemed demonstrative, 
though corroborative, of the capital truth before 
us, the assignment of endless duration to created 
minds. 

"It will indeed be alleged, and perhaps 
justly, that the same reasons which now demand 
an after-life, will go forward with undiminished 
force to another, and again to another epoch of 
existence ; [these reasons will surely abide for- 
ever the same in regard to ransomed souls] ; so 
as in fact to establish the claim of [such a] man 
to absolute immortality. It may be so ; and 
yet the vastness of such a belief, if we conceive 
of what the terms convey, must throw us back 
upon the clearest and most irrefragable proof, 

" What is it we are speaking of ? Infinity ! 
and infinity attached to a finite being ! Does 
it not seem as if, for a creature to challenge for 
itself, in any sense, a boundless attribute, were 
to trench upon the prerogative of the Divine 
Nature ? Or, if Revelation had not set this mat- 
ter on another footing, might it not seem a 
surrender of the first principles of theology to 



54 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



admit, that beings, derived, dependent, limited, 
might participate with the uncreated and un- 
limited nature in the attribute of indestructible 
existence? Can it be true, that men, or any- 
other creatures, shall go in company with the 
Self-existent Being, through such tracts of dura- 
tion as shall almost bring oblivion upon the 
point of commencement, and generate a con- 
sciousness as if He and they were alike eter- 
nal. 

" We talk lightly [glibly] of immortality ; but 
it is because the greatness of the idea prevents 
our considering what it is we affirm. More 
thoughtfulness would impel us to look more 
narrowly to the grounds of our belief. 

"But has it not been demonstrated, that 
mind, because it is a simple and indestructible 
substance, must live forever ? Whoever accepts 
this demonstration is free to do so ; and even 
those who decline to receive it as absolutely 
conclusive, will gladly listen to an argument on 
this ground, after they have by another process 
convinced themselves, that indeed the human 
mind is destined to perpetuity. [The mind-sub- 
stance must surely be eternal ; but we want as- 
surance of more than this, — of a conscious 
experience for ever and ever.] Meanwhile, both 
parties will gratefully turn to the inspired writ- 



Reserved from Decay* 



55 



ings, to derive thence the best sort of evidence 
the doctrine can admit." — Saturday Evening, 
London, 1832, xxvii, pp. 308-311. 

" We are inclined to believe, that the very 
law of dependent natures, which, apart from the 
constant energy of the divine will, would reduce 
them to nothing, actually operates so far as 
to produce a sort of intellectual gravitation of 
all rational beings, toward the lower ranks of 
existence. So, while there are impulses bear- 
ing us upward and onward ; there is also a 
uniform tendency downward, or toward the nihil- 
ity out of which we sprang." "It is not to be 
admitted, that God has made anything, which 
once existing, exists like himself necessarily and 
eternally." " The belief of the survivance of 
the living principle, the author would derive 
from moral and religious considerations, and 
from explicit divine testimony. As to the pre- 
tended demonstration of immortality drawn 
from the assumed simplicity and indestruc- 
tibility of the soul, as an immaterial substance, 
they appear either altogether inconclusive, or 
if conclusive prove immensely more than we 
can desire, the immortality of birds, beasts, 
and fishes, insects, and zoophytes ! " — Physical 
Theory of Another Life, London, 1863, pp. 
227, 270, 279, 254,315. 



The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



CHAPTER V. 

MITIGATION OF DESTINY. 

" Yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did 
not stir up all his wrath. For he remembered that they 
were but flesh ; a wind that passeth away, and cometh 
not again." Psa. 78 : 38, 39. 

Out from the fallen millions of the human 
race, infinite mercy saves and eternally glorifies 
a multitude of souls. The rest remain fallen, 
lost, ruined ; some of them so resisting the 
attempt made for their recovery, as to confirm 
themselves in ever-abiding woe. Is it neces- 
sary to insist upon this worst finality, for all 
creatures left outside of heaven ? If so, there 
will ever be unwarranted attempts, to count 
the many, or the whole inside. 

It surely is right and humane in us, to admit 
some possible alleviation of doom to less guilty 
souls. For we find the pitying Jehovah himself 
restraining his power and justice, and deign- 
ing not to "stir up all his wrath" against the 
guilty ; as seen in the passage above given ; 
(and in Isa. 57 : 16, Psa. 103 : 9, 13, 14, &c.) 



Mitigation of Destiny, 



57 



He thus allows a letting-up of infliction upon 
his wandering people, rather than allow their 
very faculties to be crushed out ; why may he 
not then allow that very letting-down of facul- 
ties to his unrecovered creatures, rather than 
• allow sin and misery to multiply too greatly in 
his universe ? 

Is it said in answer, If a person lives at all 
after death, he cannot help living on, as vigor- 
ously or more vigorously, forever ? How do you 
know that ? God has not said so ; on the con- 
trary he tells us, he will put a limit to infliction, 
4 1 lest the spirit should fail before me, and the 
souls which I have made." (Isa. 57 : 16.) It 
is only his preserving and reserving power that 
keeps any finite creature in existence ; and if 
he did not intervene, the conscious faculties of 
our being would speedily go out in darkness, 
especially under the benumbing pressure of 
solitary gloom. 

Are not all the creatures of God under his 
full control, and dependent on his continual 
preservation ? And who are we, worms of the 
dust, to arrogate for ourselves essential immor- 
tality, independent of Him ? Is it not true 
that God 4 ' only hath immortality " in himself ? 
(1 Tim. 6 : 16.) Does not all else go to decay, 
creatures as well as things, except as He gives 



58 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



special promise of eternal growth to his loved 
and loving ones ? Oh ! how certain and how 
glorious is their assurance of immortality, as 
fixed and insured by their union with Him who is 
himself "the life," and by his ever-reiterated 
promise, " He that believeth on me hath ever- 
lasting life ! " But as for the rest, — there are 
ways enough, which we might readily describe, 
had we space, in which all the ends of justice 
would be met in gradually decaying souls ; even 
as the ends of grace are reached in perpetually 
growing souls. 

The infant soul begins in inconsciousness, 
the soul often falls into long unconsciousness 
in after life ; and why may not muffling circum- 
stances bring a soul into abiding unconscious- 
ness ? — in cases where the justice and good- 
ness of God may thus be answered, and when 
full recompense has been rendered according 
to desert ? Is it not likely to require less time, 
to administer the 44 few stripes," on the igno- 
rant, than the " many stripes " on the wilful 
sinner ? Has a dark dungeon life no tendency 
to stupefy ? And how can we attribute growth, 
or anything less than decay of faculty, to " the 
spirits in prison " in the " outer darkness" 
" to whom is reserved the blackness of dark- 
ness forever " ? (Jude 13.) 



Mitigation of Destiny. 



59 



It cannot be objected, that we advocate a 
partial annihilation. There is nothing more 
abhorrent to our view here presented, than any- 
thing that savors of the annihilation theory. 
We teach no violent extinction of being, no 
cessation of a soul's substance or essence, no 
decay even of anything save of personal self-con- 
scious action, under the necessitated disuse of 
faculty and limitation of opportunity. The 
annihilation theory nullifies future punishment, 
by representing it as extinction, which we here 
show to be the very opposite to punishment, — 
any approach to it mitigating rather than inflict- 
ing penalty ; — and thus that theory offers a 
premium upon iniquity, presenting the same 
penalty for every degree of sin, and encourag- 
ing the wicked to end the quicker their miseries 
by plunging deeper into crime. 

Moreover, that theory completely subverts 
the Bible, by making extinction to be the import 
of its terms, destruction, perishing, ruin, loss, and 
especially " death " ; which we on the contrary 
here show to be (what orthodoxy has always 
taught,) simply a separation, from God as well 
as from the body, in the miserable destitution 
of reserved existence. Such a dogma, of " con- 
ditional immortality," as a reward for good be- 
havior, with the forfeiture of it put as the pen- 



60 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

alty of sin, is a notion most irrational, absurd, 
and dangerous ; turning all Scripture terms and 
teaching upside down. 

But a limited immortality, denoting persist- 
ence of conscious experience, to good and to bad 
alike, just so far and so long as material and 
opportunity for action are furnished in the na- 
ture of things ; — this is no theory of annihila- 
tion, or other vagary devised to be rid of the 
old orthodox interpretation and faith. It is sim- 
ply common-sense and the known principles of 
psychology applied where Revelation is silent ; 
and is in full harmony with all its accepted 
definitions and statements. Such thoughts are 
not only evangelically safe ; they are all that 
can save the Old Faith, from those vagrant 
emendations and that utter contempt, which 
the extra-scriptural conjectures of miserable 
eternities for constantly new-coming millions 
in heathen ignorance, are fast bringing upon it. 

Does any one still say, that the immaterial, 
and uncompounded, and incorruptible nature 
of the soul, forbids that in any case it could 
go into any sort of decay, or loss of its human 
energy ? Did Plato say that ? Doubted. But 
suppose he or some other philosopher did ; is 
that like citing Paul, or Christ ? Shall we 
honor a human Philosophy, or a divine Rev- 



Mitigation of Destiny, 



61 



elation ? When the Bible is silent, let us not 
speculate, and invent disturbing theories, which 
contravene and dishonor the teachings that are 
there. 

We are not speculating here. We are only 
by suggestions showing how needless it is to 
speculate, or to have any pet theory on the 
subject. We are only pointing out how evi- 
dent it is, that God's Word does not need 
patching up with doctrines of restoration, or 
annihilation, or future probation, — as soon as 
we own our ignorance, and talk of eternity 
only where that Word plainly talks of it. For 
then, without our patching, God's way is seen 
to be all wise, and just, and good. 

"But then," some reader may heedlessly 
say, " if there is mitigation of doom allowed 
in God's economy for any poor ignorant crea- 
tures, — I must believe that there will be miti- 
gation for all; and that all misery will some 
time end, as annihilationists say." A fatal 
and unfounded inference that. It w T ould cer- 
tainly be proper, and might be commendable, 
for us to rejoice in a prospect of all sorrow 
brought to an end, IF the great Jehovah author- 
ized such a hope. We can know nothing about 
it but what he tells us. And since his loving- 
kindness does not forbid the present and long- 



62 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

continued existence of evil, while his infallible 
Word assures us that some human evil and 
grief will forever remain ; — our " must be- 
lieve " is shut up to what He says. 

Let the objector give heed to what the re- 
vered Dr. Bushnell says on this subject. He 
observes, that after sinners have entered upon 
their doom, " their being may grow less and 
less without ever reaching complete extinction, 
as the asymptote of a circle is a line so pro- 
jected as to be always approaching the circle 
without ever touching it." Ah yes ! 

" Forever dying and yet never dead." 

" This is the second death." 

But is the plea made, that the fall of man 
was into eternal death and misery for all ? — for 
the old Confession says so ? Does it ? Then, 
so much the worse for the old Confession ! 
For there is not a word of any such thing in 
the Bible ! The very expression " eternal 
death" is entirely wanting from the Scrip- 
tures. When the fall becomes confirmed into 
that, it is called " the second death." (Rev. 
20: 14.) By the fall of Adam, not only tem- 
poral but spiritual " death passed unto all men," 
as Paul declares, and as we have already in- 
sisted. But not a lisp have we there or any- 



Mitigation of Destiny, 



o 3 



where of its being a personal punishment at all, 
much less of its being an eternal punishment. 
It is a providential loss, a privation, leaving 
men to sure sinning and suffering, by their own 
fault alone, in every degree of ill-desert and of 
evil consequence, — (and why not also of evil 
duration in ruin and decay ?) 

Certain it is, that God made man capable of 
immortality, and fitted for the " gift of eternal 
life," which he would have had if remaining 
holy. And certain it is, that every soul entering 
the future existence sinning and unsaved, can have 
nothing but evil before it, having fallen into an 
interminable ruin. " There is no peace, 
saith the Lord, unto the wicked " ; till in sor- 
row and solitude the very faculties of the soul 
may wear out. O what a bitter, what an abid- 
ing cup of evil, comes upon the devotees of 
sin ! We need not try to enhance its terrors, 
by fancied eternities of conscious growth in sin, 
entirely beyond anything told us, and quite de- 
rogatory to Him, who is rather revealed to us 
as intending to " put down all rule, and all au- 
thority and power," crushing the kingdom of 
sin "under his feet." (i Cor. 15 : 24-28.) 

As certain as is man's capacity by nature for 
immortality, just as certain is it, that God did 
not, and could not in pity (to say nothing of 



64 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



fairness) make any creature actually immortal 
or incapable of decay, — until that creature was 
proved in his free agency, to show whether his 
immortality would be an endless blessing or 
curse to the universe. Poets may sing as they 
will of the glories of universal immortality ; 
for they seldom look at the dark side, or note 
what a horror that whispers for the doomed. 
But theology cannot afford to honor such 
dreams, at the expense of the justice and lov- 
ing-kindness of our Heavenly Father. 

If we have any God worth having, the Bible 
is right in depicting him as allowing only death 
and finite evil to fall beforehand on a race of 
his unborn creatures ; and not endless misery 
to any, till by voluntary neglect of light they 
have brought it on themselves. Capacity for 
immortality must pass on to confirmation in per- 
sistent conscious being, by reason of enlight- 
ened activity, either in holiness or in sin ; and 
the idea of necessitated endless attai7iment to 
callow unfledged souls before such a process of 
progressive attaining, is as repugnant to sound 
reason, as it is to the character of a wise and 
gracious God. 

Could the All-Seeing, with foreknowledge of 
all the sad results, precipitate such a fore- 
doomed creation of wide-spread sin and misery, 



Mitigation of Destiny, 



65 



— stamped on purpose with the seal of unaverti- 
ble persistence; so as to put it out of his power 
to limit and crush the evil ? Had Infinite Skill 
no way to open immortality to mortals, without 
thus getting on his hands a whole race of un- 
manageable immortals ? And who shall dare 
to say, that the infinite Jehovah has not power 
to create beings for immortality, without their 
being from the very first immortal, — especially 
when not a syllable of his Word forbids the 
supposition ? 

Instead of looking at God, as plunging mill- 
ions by birth into inevitable eternity and in- 
finity of being, without any previous trial of 
their course, and with such awful results to fol- 
low, — how much more reasonable as well as 
scriptural, to regard the beneficent Creator as 
starting each person a finite limited free agent, 
capable of growing, by holy or sinful activity, 
into an immortality of happiness or woe ! This 
view gives a more cheerful view of the uni- 
verse, making temporal death an alleviator of 
the evils of spiritual death ; since it cuts short 
the career of the sinking millions, lest they 
should harden themselves into too intense and 
prolonged a vitality of the endless doom ! 
Bless God for the ameliorations of the grave. 
It is in mercy He smites. 

5 



66 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CREATION JUSTIFIED. 

" The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are 
over all his works." " The earth is full of the goodness 
of the Lord." Psa. 145 19 & 33 : 5. 

New England has always discarded from her 
church creeds, all unscriptural assertion of eter- 
nal doom to the children of Adam as an imme- 
diate result of his fall. And if the longer 
Westminster symbol was disfigured with it, 
this was only one of the few errors of those 
times, that unhappily crept into that best of 
creeds ; and its rejection has been one of those 
quiet qualifications with which New England 
Theology has always endorsed that venerable 
Confession of Faith. We have ever looked 
upon a few such points as flies in the precious 
pot of ointment ; and have cherished all the 
essentials of that creed, while freely criticising 
and improving it in these minor respects. Not 
a particle of the essential orthodox faith of the 
ages has been marred by these advances here 
pointed out ; but rather, by these very means 



Creation Justified. 



6 7 



(as attempted in this book) the true Evangel- 
ical Faith of those old symbols has been saved, 
and is still to be saved, from that utter rejec- 
tion and overthrow that is ever threatening it. 

Perilous times are on us now. Instead of 
amending (as Edwards and the Fathers did, and 
as we are here trying to do) the few incidental 
but prejudicial defects of Old Calvinism, — and 
so preserving in human confidence the good old 
" faith once delivered to the saints " ; our wise 
ones and our great ones (O ! how many,) are 
spiking the guns, and hauling down the banners 
of our holy warfare, — throwing overboard all 
Calvinism, all Westminster teaching, all ' Pil- 
grim Faith, all New England Theology, even 
the best part of simple Evangelical belief. 
And what have we left ? Alas ! alas ! If only 
the late respected Commission had known its 
day, its golden opportunity, — re-asserting the 
essentials of the Westminster Faith, only im- 
proved and abridged, — how happy should we 
be ! how much more hopeful would be the out- 
look for Zion and for souls ! 

One of two results is to come. Either the 
Pilgrim Faith is to be completely rejected and 
scorned ; or else that Faith is to be maintained, 
by means of such emendations allowed as are 
here set forth, — carefully kept to minor details. 



68 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 



and not allowed to trench upon the essential truths, 
which all the orthodoxy of the ages has pre- 
served. It is such progress combined with wise 
conservatism that alone can save the Ark of the 
Covenant from the hands of the Philistines. 
What we want is a real advance, not a " new 
departure " from the faith. Why should we, in 
correcting the lesser mistakes of the fathers, 
rush into this other extreme of semi-pelagian, 
semi-socinian latitudinarianism ? Why should 
we hurry from the old doctrines of free unmer- 
ited grace, into the now-prevalent way of looking 
at men, as entitled to salvation, — unless they 
are very bad, or are furnished with extra pro- 
bation ? 

It makes all the difference in the world, what 
" Philosophy of the Plan " of the universe we 
adopt. 

If we start with guessing — for there is no 
material for anything but guessing — that all life 
is immortal (as some are now urging,) — that 
our human endlessness of conscious character 
is proved by the life of plants, and insects, and 
cattle, — that the Almighty had no power (or 
at least no skill) to make creatures, and even 
moral agents, subject to the common decay of 
nature, — but found he had on his hands a 
swarming race of immortal sinners, whom he 



Creation Justified. 



69 



must somehow or other get into his inner 
heaven, in order to redeem his character from 
the look of terrible cruelty in such a creation, 
— and that in view of this predicament, seen 
or foreseen, he devised a scheme " whereby he 
might be just " and yet the Author of a heart- 
rending universe like this, by gathering people 
through any and every means into his celestial 
palace, out of this cruel and unfair condition 
into which he had brought them ; — then in- 
deed shall we find ourselves with a religion of 
human claim, and demand for salvation, — en- 
larging the strait gate to take in greater 
crowds, — and expecting God to " restore " the 
sinners whom he as " a hard master " has 
unfairly got into difficulty, — or at least to fur- 
nish them with some " better chance " than 
they have. 

But if, on the other hand, we start with a 
view of God's creation as good, just as he 
pronounced it, "very good " in itself, even with- 
out reference to sin or redemption, — if we re- 
gard this world and all its creatures of different 
orders, from insect up to man, as a beneficent 
world, with nothing in it to impugn the justice, 
and fairness, and loving-kindness of God, — 
with no created sin, or foredoomed perdition, or 
unavertible persistence of misery, — with nothing 



70 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 



in the earth's constitution or the make-up of 
its successively born inhabitants, to render it 
an undesirable world, or life in it " not worth 
the living/' — so that, for men in general, and 
the race as a whole, in spite of sin and sorrow, 
it is a good thing for men now to be, even 
though there were for men no eternal heaven, 
— if in short, without pessimism,, we deem man- 
kind as handsomely and humanely dealt with 
even outside of heaven, and kindly allowed like 
other creatures to enjoy for the time being the 
blessings of a bountiful Creator ; — then shall 
we see Redemption as an extra and wonderful 
gratuity, furnished in sovereign grace, without 
any human claim, to whomsoever God wills 
(with " whosoever will " included) ; and for 
this specialty of free unmerited grace we shall 
bow in reverent adoration and gratitude, — 
striving to extend the blessing to others, as an 
infinite and gratuitous benefaction, and not as an 
inheritance to which they are born, or which God 
in creating them is under obligation to offer. 

In this mood heaven becomes to us, not the 
natural birthplace of our race, which one can 
hardly lose or miss, — but the New Kingdom 
of the Redeemed, purchased with atoning blood, 
and lifted above common humanity, through 
the measureless mercy of God's " unspeakable 



Creation Justified. 



71 



gift." Heaven was not invented to save God's 
character, or to furnish an asylum for those 
whom he did not know what else to do with. 
The celestial glory for men is an unparalleled 
specialty of munificence all uncalled for, — the 
" mansions " prepared for his select and willing 
ones, — the " heavenly places " gratuitously 
opened by God, " that in the ages to come he 
might show the exceeding riches of his grace, 
in his kindness toward us, through Christ 
Jesus." If we can reach that glory — it seems 
too much to think of ! — we are willing to take 
it as a most astonishing 'favor \ not as a matter of 
course. 

We must vindicate God's Natural Creation, 
before we can duly exalt his Redeeming Grace. 
No Theology is going to honor God, or recom- 
mend itself to men, which does not acquit the 
Creator of unfairness in this fallen world, just 
as it exists, and even if never a soul were put 
into the everlasting paradise. It has been the 
bane of the grosser preaching now happily an- 
tiquated, to put forth such a harsh and malig- 
nant view of God's world, and of the state and 
doom of God's natural-born children, as to dis- 
gust humanity with such a picture of Deity, and 
drive the world into scepticism or heresy. When 
mankind are seen to be fairly dealt with out of 



72 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

Christy then may they be brought to Christ ; 
and finding themselves there treated better than 
fairly, they will sing the wonders of Redeem- 
ing Love ! 

It may be pleaded, that " Redemption was 
not an afterthought ; but the divine plan in- 
cluded ail human history, of man not only 
fallen but recovered : and the final result will 
justify creation." True, very true. But more 
than this is true. Even the present aspect of 
things, when rightly viewed, must justify crea- 
tion, in the apprehensio?i of men as well as in the 
councils of God. Whether man's sense of 
justice can be satisfied as to final results, de- 
pends upon what those results are seen to be. 
It is very easy for a believer in universal sal- 
vation to rest content in view of final results ; 
but not so easy for one who sees and feels as- 
sured, that a large part of the human race are 
to go on growingly miserable to all eternity. In 
trying to press people up to the latter view, we 
inevitably crowd multitudes over to the former 
view. So that, a medium view, if allowable, 
will better concentrate the faith of mankind. 

Such a medium view, namely, — that the 
misery of men is mercifully imprisoned into 
a tendency to decay (instead of growth,) so 
that, the human consciousness of the woe will 



Creation Justified. 



73 



hold out interminably, by no means to the 
ignorant masses, but only to those evangelized 
sinners who wilfully invoke it upon themselves, 
— this makes it possible to realize the fairness 
and beneficence of creation, not only as to final 
results, but even as to the present history of 
the unsaved world. And this view alone exalts 
Redemption, as an extra work of pure grace; 
saving it from degradation, as a mere make- 
shift of justice, to atone for an otherwise utter 
unfairness of creation. 

Our present view explains that passionate 
protestation of Paul, where he says : " I could 
wish that I myself were anathema from Christ 
for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according 
to the flesh." (Rom. 9:3.) No pious heart 
can help sympathizing with the devout Dr. 
Samuel Hopkins, in his deep rendings of soul 
as exhibited in his autobiography ; while so 
often and so strenuously he tries to work him- 
self up, to the personal experience of his own 
frightful doctrine (drawn from this language of 
Paul,) — that he like the apostle must be will- 
ing to be damned, — as a proof of his " disinter- 
ested benevolence." The chief extravagance 
vanishes, when we find that in Paul's view, to 
be dissevered from Christ meant only to be 
left "without law " and so without gospel judg- 



74 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



ment, subject only to the inheritance of nature, 
which in itself is finite, good, and fair. , 

There are two thoughts serving to balance 
the mind, when perplexed with these questions 
of existence : (i) God is the centre and ground 
of things, not man. The knowledge of our- 
selves and of our Maker come close together, 
and are near allied. If man is seen first, yet 
God is seen foremost. The creature can better 
afford to dwindle, than to have the Creator 
dwindle in thought. What are we without 
Him 1 Let the emphasis be put on maintain- 
ing intact the certainty of a Heavenly Father, 
holy, wise, and good ; rather than on the main- 
tenance of every creature's perpetuity. "Let 
God be true and every man a liar." Let us 
have on the throne a loving and fair-dealing 
Creator, though among the abortions of nature 
some created souls should be found shriveling 
up, and destined to go out of sight. 

(2) A second great thought is, that Char- 
acter, not bare existence, is what really lasts. 
Many try to prove immortality from the mere 
fact of present life, or from longings or in- 
stincts, or from the power of thought and feel- 
ing. But these all are very unsatisfactory as 
grounds for endurance. Even brutes have 
these claims to immortality ; but who is satis* 



Creation Justified. 75 

fied to rest our human hereafter on this brutish 
basis ? Not life, not thought, not reason, even, 
but conscience, and character, and moral activity 
immortalize man. It is the necessities of moral 
government, the claims of moral retribution, that 
give assurance of the life beyond. 

Strong characters, whether good or bad, must 
by vigorous moral energy inwrought, perpetuate 
themselves, to be the light and the shade of 
the moral universe. But unfledged faculty, un- 
fixed character, and humanity but partially 
developed, — under ignorance and heathen 
darkness, — with ever downward way, and (in 
its unrenewed degeneracy) without hope of 
any upward rise, — may reach a mi-nute and 
yet mi-nuter littleness of being, — the character 
never changed, the faculty faded out. The 
great moral character of God must be vindi- 
cated, in the just award of lasting human char- 
acters, good and evil, though this should involve 
the decay of personal identity to immature and 
unenlightened souls. [Compare the views of 
Dr. Watts and Dr. Emmons on this point.] 

One may take a wrong idea of our sugges- 
tion, and may imagine difficulties and evils in 
it. But let the mind be anchored in this simple 
ground of all, — that persistence of personal 
identity is not of fated necessity, but is (under 



j6 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

God) the person's own doing, each hour inten- 
sified or belittled by moral action or inaction, 
whether in holiness or in sin ; — and the way 
of truth will open clear and safe. 

The suggestion is not a sudden vagary. It 
has been tried long years, proving the soul's 
solace and light through the mazes of disputed 
doctrine ; enabling one pulpit at least for over 
forty years past, to hold up and hold forth the 
great doctrines of grace in all their urgency ; 
with no letting down of God's law in any par- 
ticular, no shrinking to declare the whole coun- 
sel of God, in its " severity " as well as its 
" goodness," — though the waves of defection 
and emasculated orthodoxy have rolled terribly 
around. 

Every man must have a vent for the dire dis- 
may and doubt that will come over one, in view 
of some former presentations of human destiny. 
Many alas ! escape, by wresting some funda- 
mental sanction from the Gospel. We, on the 
contrary, find relief in this correction of a 
philosophical error, that has slyly crept in among 
our essential doctrines, but is not one of them ; 
and so we keep the gospel system intact, in 
our minds and in our work. 

Let no one impugn the motive that puts forth 
this plea. It is a sincere desire to save the 



Creation Justified. 



77 



Faith of the Pilgrims, the Evangelic Truth of 
God (so fearfully threatened), that emboldens 
an old man to leave this legacy, — the story of 
what has saved him to the Faith, and nerved 
his arm for the gospel struggle, these long, 
long years. If anybody can rescue the ark in 
a better way, for the sake of the dear Christ 
let him do it ; and we will be content. 

We have no hobby to ride. We ask no 
man's adhesion to any view of ours. We only 
desire, that some how or other, without perilous 
theories of restoration, annihilation, or future 
probation, we keep ourselves and the churches 
to the good " old paths," while with David we 
" sing of mercy and of judgment " both. 



78 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 



CHAPTER VII. 

CALVARMINIAN DOCTRINE. 

" If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts 
unto your children, how much more shall your heav- 
enly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
him." Lu. ii : 13. 

Our description of the fall of man, and of 
individual recovery therefrom, as given in 
Chapter One, makes the matter of regenera- 
tion, or the renewal of nature, a very simple 
thing. " That which is born of the flesh is flesh, 
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 
So says Christ, (Jn. 3 : 6.) As natural birth 
gives the common breath of natural life, so the 
new birth gives the holy Breath (or Spirit) of 
spiritual life to a man. The Holy Ghost, who up 
to this point is only an Awakener of the soul, 
by means of conscience and the divine word 
applied from without, now becomes an indwell- 
ing Spirit, (Jn. 14: 17, &c.) ; so that the person 
is now " led by the Spirit," instead of being 
pushed as before ; and " as many as are (thus) 



Calvanninian Doctrine. 



19 



led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of 
God"; (Rom. 8: 14, Jn. 1: 12, 13.) How 
plain, that thus " ye must be born again," or 
" born from above," or " born of the Spirit " ; 
and that, ' 4 Except a man be born anew he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." (Jn. 3 : 3- 
7, Revision.) 

We have heard many discourses upon this 
passage, labored disquisitions to show, under 
five or fifteen heads, what regeneration is, and 
is not. But here it is all, in a nutshell : In 
nature we want the spiritual life ; there is no 
life without birth ; we must be born of the Spirit. 
What could be simpler than this ? Regenera" 
tion is not physical ("not of blood"), nor 
psychical (" of the will of the flesh"), nor 
moral (" of the will of man "), but spiritual 
("of God" by his Spirit.) Jn. 1 : 13, & 3: 
5,6. 

Here comes the great practical question : 
Can this Spirit-birth be had ? Can it be had 
by me — by any one ? Or, must it be waited 
for ? It certainly is " the gift of God," and a 
great necessity to man ; does God give it to cer- 
tain chosen ones, his "elect" ? or, does he give 
it to every one who wants it ? Here is the 
grand battle-ground of Old Calvinism on the 
one side, and old Arminianism on the other. 



8o The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



The one said, the renewing Spirit is for "God's 
elect " ; the other said, the renewing Spirit is 
for " whosoever will." On that issue the battle 
was fought out ; and nobody knows who gained 
the victory. For, they were both right, and 
both wrong, on this point. The renewing Spirit 
is for God's elect, and it is also for whoso- 
ever will. How exceeding simple are the issues 
of truth, when once the human passion has 
died out, which clouded the one or the other of 
the two sides of one great fact. 

The error of each of these theologies was, 
not so much in what it asserted, as in w T hat it 
denied ; the one denying " election of grace," 
the other denying the fulness of " whosoever 
will." The Arminian error was greater and 
more evil than the Calvinist error ; because 
God is above man, and caviling at God's sov- 
ereignty is more dangerous than a seeming in- 
fringement upon human opportunity. But since 
both theologies had an error in them, mankind 
have pretty unanimously agreed to shelve them 
both as systems ; and the Evangelical Church 
of all denominations has substituted in their 
place the new Calvinism; which, as uniting an 
element from each of those old views, may 
better be called the Calvarminian Doctrine. 
This we proceed to elucidate. 



Calvarminian Doctrine. 81 

In the passage at the head of this chapter, 
we are clearly taught how the renewing Spirit 
may be had. God will " give the Holy Spirit to 
them that ask him." Earthly parents, though 
imperfect and evil, " give good gifts unto (their) 
children," when asked ; and shall not the good 
and perfect Parent, the " heavenly Father, give 
the Holy Spirit," that best of all gifts, to his 
children begging for it ? True, they are aliens 
by sin, and not chosen " sons of God " by 
adoption, (Gal. 4 : 5, 6;) yet they are all "his 
offspring," (Ac. 17 : 28, 29,) created and cared 
for in his infinite love. If hindrances are in 
the way, ye human fathers " know how to give 
good gifts," overcoming the obstacles, and be- 
stowing the very thing needed, not " a serpent " 
or " a scorpion " for " a fish " or " an egg." 
And doth not the great heavenly Father know 
how to escape theological cavils and difficulties, 
and " give the Holy Spirit," the very regener- 
ating energy needed, " to them that ask him " 
for it, — even though unrenewed as yet ? Yea ! 
" How much more shall your heavenly Father 
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him," than 
earthly parents "give good gifts unto their 
children " ! 

Surely, this is a " whosoever will " ; and the 
Arminian seemed to have it all his own way 
6 



82 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

here. But alas ! not content with the positive 
teaching, he pushed on to assert a negative 
extreme. He falsely inferred, that because 
men can have God's renewing Spirit by asking 
for it, therefore there is no other way to have 
it. Here the Calvinist came forward, with 
other Scripture : " Before they call I will 
answer, and while they are yet speaking I will 
hear." (Isa. 65: 24.) " Esaias is very bold, 
and saith, I was found of them that sought me 
not ; I was made manifest unto them that asked 
not after me." (Rom. 10: 20.) "Ye have 
not chosen me, but I have chosen you." (Jn. 
15: 16.) "As many as were ordained to 
eternal life believed ; " (Ac. 13 : 48 ;) — " ves- 
sels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto 
glory." (Rom. 9 : 23.) "God hath from the 
beginning chosen you to salvation," (2 Thes. 
2:3;) " according as he hath chosen us in 
him before the foundation of the world ; " 
(Eph. 1 : 4 ;) — " names written in the book of 
life from the foundation of the world." (Rev. 
17 : 8.) And a multitude of similar passages, 
teaching that God's choosing and work is before 
any asking or other act of the individual. 

And certainly this must be a reality. In no 
other way can a dying infant be renewed and saved. 
The " judgment-seat of Christ " is for manifesta- 



Calvarminian Doctrine, 83 



Hon, (2 Cor. 5 : 10, Revision ;) "that each one 
may receive the things attained in (or through) 
the body." # Unless that little soul is renewed 
4< in the body," there is for it no spiritual life 
and joy forever, but only the fading out of an 
undeveloped character. (See Dr. Watts, Dr. 
Emmons, &c.) But " the promise is to you and 
to your children " ; the regenerating Spirit 
must be given ; for only " of such (coming or 
brought to Christ) is the kingdom of heaven." 



* This is the true rendering of 2 Cor. 5 : 10, and not 
"deeds done in the body,' 1 as one of the valorous " D. D., 
LL. D."s of the Creed Commission sets forth, — de- 
claring that to insert these scripture words in the new- 
creed " would have involved the creed in an absurdity, 
to be immediately denied, — or else in its being put to 
a torture of interpretation, as soon as published." But 
the true reading has no " absurdity " and needs no " tor- 
ture," in relation to infants. And shall inspired words 
be deemed too absurd or in need of torture, to be tol- 
erated in our new-fashioned creed ? How eminently 
useful would be a little Bible knowledge as well as com- 
mon-sense ! There is really no such phrase as " deeds 
done in the body," but simply " things in the body " 
which lead to the subsequent doing. If this teaching 
of 2 Cor. has anything of qualification, it is of the same 
sort as that of the judgment scene in Mat. 25th, from 
which the eternal "issues 99 are right here quoted in the 
creed ; and the one was certainly as fit to be quoted as 
the other. 



84 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

And that regenerate infant, dying and opening 
its eyes on Christ, will then believe him and 
love him, as the first clear act of its developing 
life. There is no other way into heaven ; for 
the spiritual " death " of the fall has " passed 
unto all," so that all "must be born again," to 
have spiritual life and enjoyment in the pres- 
ence of God. There must be previous divine 
choice or electing grace for an infant, before 
its own act of askings or it "cannot see the 
kingdom of God." 

Moreover, even some adults must in somewhat 
similar manner be saved. For, although " he 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," 
that is, believeth in Christ and his gospel re- 
ceived ; — and when heathen are in ignorance 
of Christ, " how shall they believe in him of 
whom they have not heard " ? (Rom. 10:14;) 
— yet even of ignorant heathen, no doubt some 
at least " shall come from the east and west, 
and shall sit down in the kingdom of heaven." 
(Mat. 8:11.) 

There is but one way of salvation, namely by 
faith in Christ. " Neither is there salvation in 
any other ; for there is none other name under 
heaven given among men whereby we must be 
saved" ; (Ac. 4 : 12 ;) and "he that believeth 
not is condemned already, because he hath not 



Calvarminian Doctrine. 



35 



believed in the name of the only begotten Son of 
God." (Jn. 3 : 18.) But before this distinct 
faith is reached, there must be regenerating 
grace to awaken it ; and before it can be known 
or distinctly asked for, this renewing power of 
the Spirit may be implanted in a human soul, 
as a seed to germinate under future light and heat 
into a fully developed faith and salvation. 
There must be in life a divine renewal ; which 
may in some cases surely (why not in many ?) 
be a previous elective work of God's Spirit, before 
the soul cares enough, or even knows enough, 
to ask for it. May not God's people be made 
" willing in the day of his power " ? 

The Calvinist thus far was certainly right ; as 
certainly as was the Arminian in the first view 
given above. But the latter insisted on his claim, 
that nothing but the first view was correct. So he 
had to meet the above strong argument, by let- 
ting down the gospel conditions of salvation. In or- 
der to leave a chance for infant salvation, he had 
to take ground that an infant may be saved 
without regeneration ; and in order to leave a 
chance for any benighted heathen, he had to 
take ground, that faith in Christ and his gospel 
is not essential to salvation, except perhaps so far 
as one is evangelized, but that obedience to con- 
science is the condition of salvation. These theo- 



86 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

ries necessitated all the Pelagian errors de- 
picted in Chapter One, — denying that the 
infant human race are fallen creatures, in need 
of constitutional re-construction in order to 
fitness for heaven ; and they undermine the 
very idea of the Gospel as a salvation, super- 
naturally received, — making natural con- 
science, and not renewing grace, lift the soul 
to God. Orthodoxy cannot own such heresy 
as this ; for ultra- Arminianism is just as bad as 
ultra-Calvinism can be. 

Thus Calvinism held its own in the certainty 
of such a thing as electing grace. But, just like 
Arminianism, it rushed to the extreme, saying 
that nothing else is true, — that Sovereign divine 
choice, previous to the individual's asking, is 
the only process or order of transformation. 
Here the Calvinist was just as much in error, 
as was the Arminian in a like restriction to his 
own one side of the truth. For, both were 
right in their positive view, while both were 
wrong in their negative claim, that the other 
side was all wrong. But on this mutually ex- 
terminating issue the combatants locked horns ; 
and the deadly tussle went on, until both par- 
ties are pretty nearly extinguished ; and out of 
the ruins comes forth the golden mean of 
truth, the true Calvarminian Doctrine, recon- 
ciling both. 



Calvarminian Doctrine. 



By 



Let it be well considered, then, that God can 
and does renew souls of his own sovereign 
grace, without the asking; and also, God 
can and does renew by his Spirit every one 
that asks for it, — ■ " whosoever will." We find 
these to be both great facts, whether we can 
fully reconcile and combine them in our theo- 
ries, or not ; just as we find that God's agency 
and man's freedom are both great facts, 
whether we can measure and adjust them or 
not. However, the combining of the two, at 
least so far as is needful, is not a difficult mat- 
ter. 

Cannot God renew all that ask it, and also 
renew others beside ? Cannot the Lord of the 
manor take into his feast some elected guests, 
that were chosen and bidden before ; and still 
send forth "his servant into the streets and 
lanes and bring in " others, even " whosoever 
will" come? Or even, when "yet there is 
room " with all desiring ones in, may he not also 
send out to others, and " compel them to come 
in," making his people "willing in the day of 
his power " by his sovereign goodness and 
skill, so that his "house may be filled" ? (Lu. 
14 : 21-24.) 

The denied assertion of ultra-Calvinism is, 
that this great promise of the Holy Spirit to 



88 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

those who ask, applies only to regenerate souls ; 
for it is they only that ever ask. But this is 
easier said than proved. The ultra claim is really 
this : That there is no promise to unrenewed men. 
This the modern Evangelical Faith denies. 
A blessed truth it is, that the promise " ask and 
ye shall receive " belongs to christian people ; 
so that we are continually to seek and ob- 
tain new measures of the Spirit, for our 
growth in grace. " Still there 's more to fol- 
low." But we cannot help believing that the 
same promise is for all " who hear the joyful 
sound." True, there is no genuine spiritual 
prayer, no holy asking, in a soul as yet unre- 
newed by the Spirit. But it cannot be shown, 
that the promise is confined to such holy, 
spiritual asking. 



Election and Free-Will. 



89 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ELECTION AND FREE-WILL. 

"By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not 
of yourselves ; it is the gift of God." Eph. 2 : 8. 

It is not derogatory to the Holy Jehovah to 
grant blessings to unholy men ; for " he maketh 
his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." 
It is not unworthy in him to promise to do this ; 
and such promise can be the offer of renewing 
grace, as well as of earthly benefits. When- 
ever renewal is granted, it must be to an unre- 
newed person. Because the gift offered is a 
Holy Ghost, it by no means follows, that God 
cannot with propriety offer it to unholy ?nen. It 
is they that need it most, to cure their unholi- 
ness ; and since he offers it for that very pur- 
pose, he does not thereby cater to their sin, nor 
encourage them in it. 

God is not thus setting unholy conditions to a 
holy attainment. For, in the first place, the 
promise made to asking, is not a promise of 
salvation complete, but only of the Spirit's aid 



90 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

to it. And even with that received, — since it 
is not irresistible, but at this stage may be 
6 fallen away ' from, as seen in Chapter Three, 
— true permanent faith and salvation may 
possibly not follow ; so that, faith alone, not 
asking for the Spirit, is made the holy condi- 
tion for a holy salvation* Moreover, the asking 
here required, though not necessarily holy, 
must be not unholy, but at least neutral ; not in 
defiance of God, but in desire for his help. 

There can be no neutral state, of continuous 
neutrality ; for " he that is not with me is 
against me," says Christ. But there may be a 
neutral act or moment, a pivotal turning point 
of poise, when a human desire reaches out for 
a better state. If not, there could be no appeal 
to a sinner to repent. Such natural desire for 
help, the impulse of a proper self-love, without 
active hostility to God, and also without the 
highest spiritual motive, is possible even for a 
natural man ; and it may be met by a blessing 
from God. One may ground his arms of re- 
bellion, before he has fully submitted to the 
government ; and the government may avail 
itself of that truce to furnish offered help to a 
reconciliation. 

We hold then, that, as there is a redemp- 
tion sufficient for all, so there is an offer 



Election and Free- Will. 91 



made to all. We do not believe in any such 
mockery of human misery, as a promise of 
gospel blessing open only to those who have it 
already ! But we deem our Lord sincere and 
in earnest, in the presentation of a genuine 
opportunity for every human being to "turn 
and live." Even if the benighted pagan, with 
all the means at command, seeks honestly and 
earnestly for help from above, the promise is 
for him. Yet such cases must be very few 
comparatively ; so that, the call for gospel 
light and guidance is imperative indeed. For, 
even with this light, how many, alas ! in gospel 
lands, miss of the straight and narrow way ! 

The asking required must be a sincere and 
earnest effort of the whole soul. " And they 
shall seek me and shall find me" saith the 
Lord, " when they shall search for me with all 
their heart." (Jer. 29 : 13.) " Many will seek 
to enter in and will not be able," (Lu. 13 : 24,) 
for want of this real searching and asking. 
How many thus 6 put their hand to the plow 
and look back ' ! Their failure is no disproof 
of the promise, and the certainty of its fulfil- 
ment to every honest soul. One may honestly 
ask for God's Spirit, and earnestly ask, even 
with all his heart ; and yet not spiritually 
understand or realize (till afterward) what it is 



92 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

he is asking for. If with all the heart we have, 
the best we have and the whole we have, we 
come to God, — he will give us a better heart. 
He certainly does not tantalize us with assur- 
ances, upon conditions that we cannot meet ; 
or ask us to begin with any such heart as we 
have not yet, and have no means of having. 

He does indeed tell us, " Make you a new 
heart " ; but in order to that, we must ask and 
get the divine Spirit to help us make it. Who 
dares to say, that we alone and unaided can 
make it, or that there is any promise of help 
unless we ask for it ? An old heart may con- 
sent and seek to become new. It is we, Just 
as we are, poor perishing sinners, that must 
forthwith call upon God for help. 

It is easy to say, that though this be theo- 
retically so, yet practically no one ever did 
or evil will seek God, until he is born again. 
Is not this claiming a greater insight into 
the hidden processes of mind and of God, 
than is fitting or correct ? To own the thing 
naturally possible, while pronouncing it mor- 
ally impossible, does not help the matter. 
Nice distinctions between natural and moral 
ability, do not clear up to men's minds the 
riddle of human responsibility. The ordi- 
nary sense of men argues : God offers to give 



Election and Free- Will. 



93 



me his Spirit if I ask for it ; either I can ask or 
I cannot ; if I can I perhaps will, but if I can- 
not I certainly will not. And if my will-not is 
natural and inevitable, and I cannot change my 
own nature, then my will-not is as much a natural 
inability as any other kind of can-not could be. 

It is possible, that a natural will has some- 
times reached a sincere craving for deliver- 
ance from sin, and an honest asking for God's 
Spirit to help. Nay more, it is probable that 
many have thus found entrance to the king- 
dom. If not, there could be no such thing as 
the 'falling away' described in Heb. 6 : 4-6. 
It is a mere question of order in the process of 
salvation. Must complete renewal in every 
case precede all human desire and request for 
it ? or, may it not often come in answer to a 
natural asking, not approved of God as holy, 
or as a rendering of the service due to him, yet 
accepted as a suitable claiming of his promise ? 
We see no possible objection to both methods 
of procedure on the part of God. Let us not 
"limit the Holy One of Israel. ,, (Psa. 78 : 41.) 
In any case, the whole ordering of Providence, 
by which one is led to ask, is in God's hand ; 
so that we give him all the praise, for prelim- 
inary guidance, as well as for the full blessing 
reached. 



94 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained* 



There can be no boasting in the turning 
unto God. And whatever the steps of ap- 
proach, every pious soul tends to attribute 
everything to saving grace. Hence Paul, in 
addressing christians as a whole, says ,as a 
matter of course, " He hath chosen as in him 
before the foundation of the world," (Eph. 
i : 4,) — without stopping to consider whether 
any of them had chosen to ask for the blessing 
before it was completely conferred. Thus, 
every grateful heart is so full of the mercy 
shown, as not to think much of its own des- 
perate decision, that perhaps settled the case. 

It is very ominous of self-deception, w r hen 
converts magnify their effort as the ground of 
their success ; for almost every truly rescued 
soul feels like exclaiming — 

" Why was / made to hear his voice, 
And enter while there *s room ; 
When thousands make a wretched choice, 
And rather starve than come ? 

" 'T was the same love that spread the feast, 
That sweetly drew me in ; 
Else I had still refused to taste, 
And perished in my sin." 

In grace, as truly as in nature, God operates 
by law ; and all is due to him, whether directly 
wrought by the touch of his finger, or obtained 



Election and Free- Will. 



95 



through the intervention of second causes. A 
sinner's asking makes the good thus reached 
no less a gift of God. The lost soul is like a 
drowning man, instinctively catching at a straw, 
which hangs to a thread, that adheres to a 
cord, that has hold of a rope, by which he is 
drawn safely ashore. The rescuer and his 
well-contrived rope get no less credit, because 
it was a mere straw at which the man clutched 
convulsively, with no clear view of his deliv- 
erer, or of rescue by his rope. Whether in 
one case a natural element of faith and of 
prayer arises, before the renewing Spirit takes 
it and makes it into renewed, spiritualized 
faith and prayer, — or in another case the 
renewing Spirit works at once, without the 
human "preparation of the heart, " (2 Chron. 
19 : 3) ; in either case, the faith and all the 
saving process " is the gift of God/' (Eph. 2 : 
8) ; so that all the saved ones have " believed 
through grace." (Ac. 18 : 27.) 

There are four stages in the awakening of 
the new life : 

(1) Divine Providence ; 

(2) Asking for the renewing Spirit ; 

(3) The renewing Spirit given ; 

(4) Christian faith, and all resulting good. 
What the ultra Arminian claims is, that (3) 

never comes without being preceded by (2). 



96 The Pilgrim Faith Mai?itained. 



What the ultra Calvinist claims is, that (3) 
always comes without being preceded by (2). 

What we, in Calvarminian Doctrine claim 
is, that (3) may come either with or without 
being preceded by (2). 

And God may foreknow that (2) intervenes 
in one case and does not intervene in another 
case. 

But in every case (1) precedes ; so that all 
is of God's goodness and care. His sovereign 
as well as promised act of renewal may be be- 
stowed with or without our previous human ask- 
ing or willing ; but even if granted upon our 
willing, that willing itself is dependent upon 
his common Providence and love. " Wherefore, 
work out your own salvation with fear and 
trembling ; for it is God that worketh in you 
both to will and to do." (Phil. 2 : 12, 13.) 

To illustrate the frequent confusing method 
of treating this subject, we take up, at ran- 
dom, a somewhat recent utterance from a 
prominent quarter : " It is perfectly true, that 
no man can believe the Gospel except by the 
power of the Holy Ghost ; and it is also true 
that all who so believe the Gospel are the 
happy subjects of God's eternal councils. 
But does all this set aside man's responsibility 
to believe a plain testimony set before him in 



Election and Free-WilL 



97 



God's word ? It most certainly does no such 
thing." The matter is here put and left in a 
shape, which causes most human minds to 
revolt against it, and to deny utterly what 
seems to the writer so certain. Why ? Be- 
cause he has made the evident ability " to 
believe a plain testimony " to be the very ina- 
bility to 44 believe the gospel" ! — a most glar- 
ing contradiction and absurdity. 

" No man can believe " without preceding 
" power of the Holy Ghost " imparted through 
"God's eternal councils yet this claimed as 
no hindrance to "man's responsibility to be- 
lieve," (in the same sense of believe) — as the 
very first thing he is to do, before the Holy 
Ghost is furnished him ! How preposterous ! 
The whole difficulty is cleared up, by adding a 
few words from the view we have presented, 
thus : " It is true, that no man can believe with 
full spiritual faith, until the Spirit is furnished 
to inspire it ; but that Spirit is offered to all who 
ask for it, even those as yet unspiritualized, 
whether elected or not. Therefore man's full 
responsibility remains," &c. The common- 
sense of men then endorses the teaching. 

Every man's immediate privilege and duty 
is, to ask for help, and with that help to come to 
full gospel faith and salvation. His responsi* 



98 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

bility for attaining a complete christian state is 
indeed real and pressing ; but it is only because 
a way to it is offered, which he now and just as 
he is can take. A parent tells his child to open 
yonder door, which is locked and without key ; 
and the child is in duty bound to open the door, 

— not because he is commanded to do unaided 
what he unaided cannot do, — but because the 
parent is holding out to him the key. Lu. 11 : 
13 is the gospel key ; let it unlock the mystery 
that has hung about God's agency and man's, 
in human salvation. 

Some one may still say, "Yes, the sinner can 
ask, but he will not." But how do you know 
that ? Are you afraid, that if you allow the pos- 
sibility that any one ever did or ever will of him- 
self ask God's aid, that will be attributing some- 
thing creditable to poor miserable fallen man ? 

— or will detract something from the grandeur 
of God's mercy to man ? How so ? Yonder is 
a child passing ; and the storm-cloud is about 
bursting on its head. It is too timid or igno- 
rant to ask for shelter, and so, running out, you 
snatch it into your house for safety. A very 
kind and gracious act indeed. But yonder 
goes the mother, seeking her child ; and your 
cry of invitation rings out for her to " come 
in ! " Does it unduly exalt the woman's vir- 



Election and Free- Will. 



tues, to think she could do so creditable a thing, 
as of her own accord to accept your invitation, 
and come in from the storm to meet her child ? 
Does it detract from the splendors of the man- 
sion, and the hospitality of the host, because 
the mother at your call stepped up to the door 
herself, and did not wait to be snatched from 
the street like the child? Surely, God can 
save both ways. 

It has been a weakness of Calvinistic argu- 
ment, that it has so often treated difficult pas- 
sages that seemed against it, as only giving 
supposed impossible cases. In this little treatise, 
we have presented at least three such passages ; 
and have cleared each of them of the disturb- 
ing element, which has made them stumbling- 
blocks to orthodoxy, (i) The falling away of 
Heb. 6 : 6, as treated here in Chapter Three ; 
(2) The remission u in the world to come," of 
Mat. 12 : 32, as treated here in Chapter Four; 
and now (3) The asking and obtaining of the 
renewing Spirit by any unrenewed man, as 
treated in these last two chapters. By such 
clearing up of the word, we would maintain 
the Pilgrim Faith. 

We thus learn, that God's economy of indi- 
vidual salvation has a double method or order. 
There is a sovereign grace, and there is a prom- ' 



ioo The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

ised grace. God blesses whom he will ; and at 
the same time he blesses all whom he has 
promised to bless. He has bound himself by 
a promise that he cannot break ; and men can 
take him at his word, and claim his promise 
as their title to the blessing, — without waiting 
for his sovereign act to show them elected to it. 
It is not derogatory to Jehovah thus to limit 
himself, so as to enlarge his offer of mercy to all. 

God's promise limits his sovereignty ; it is 
not limited by it. His sovereignty is pledged 
and bound by his promise ; but it is not de- 
stroyed by it. He is bound to do, and will do, 
all he has promised ; but he may do and will 
do more. He will bless all who ask, and many 
more besides. He has covenanted and uncov- 
ena?ited mercies to bestow. When therefore 
an Old Calvinist said, " None but the elect and 
renewed can claim the promise " ; and when 
an old Arminian said, " None but those asking 
can be blessed and saved " ; they were both 
alike wrong. This " none but " was the little 
fly in both their pots of ointment. In either 
way God can rescue men. He can snatch 
them as brands from the burning ; or, if they 
dare not wait for that — and who dares to 
wait? — they may rush from the burning, and 
be welcomed to his arms of love ! 



Election and Free- Will. 101 



Both views are right, and must be retained. 
What a sad description of the <4 New Creed " 
was that given by one of our own leading re- 
ligious journals, upon its first appearance : " It 
is clearly not Calvinistic. There is not a tinge 
of Westminster in it. Nor is it Arminian." 
Therefore, we say, it is not even Evangelical ; 
as shown in Chapter One. Instead of thus 
expurgating all the faiths from our confession, 
how much more satisfactory would it have been 
to combiiie the better part of all. Will the sound 
orthodox christians of the land, rest content 
with such a shallow representation of their 
views ? Will such an eviscerated formulary 
stand ? May the public suggestion, from one 
of our venerated theological professors, at the 
west, prove to be a prophecy fulfilled, — that 
" a revision will probably be called for within 
six years." 

Let us hold forth true Calvarminian doctrine, 
containing both Calvinistic and Arminian truth. 
Let us exalt together, the " free-grace " unmer- 
ited and wrought individually by God's own 
choice, — and the "free-grace" unlimited and 
mercifully opened to all. Bless Him, who 
" will have mercy " both on " whom He will " 
and on "whosoever will." 



102 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



CHAPTER IX. 

SUNDRY VITAL TRUTHS. 

" I am the resurrection and the life : He that believ- 
eth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live : And 
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. 
Believest thou this? " Jn. n : 25, 26. 

The view we have given of the fall of man, 
and of the recovery of individuals, as well as 
the law developing personality into continuance 
and permanence, — is all an exhibit of consti- 
tutional facts, pertaining to our mental sub- 
stance and organization. And many other 
matters of christian doctrine might be illus- 
trated by the same process, did our limits allow. 
This treatment of things in their constitutional 
aspect and relations, as constructed by the great 
Creator, and reconstructed and developed in 
the course of time, is somewhat distinct from 
the ordinary treatment by way of governmental 
relations. 

Both aspects are important, and both are 
freely presented in God's word. It is because 
the constructive or vital view has been much 



Sundry Vital Truths* 103 



neglected, in the current presentation of God's 
" moral government," that we devote our atten- 
tion to it in this book. Is it not time that this 
Vital Theology took its equal place with the 
Moral Theology of our times ? It will serve to 
vindicate many great principles of Orthodoxy, 
which the legal method fails to commend to the 
thought of this day. 

1. Take for instance the Atonement of 
Christ. Few soundly Evangelical thinkers are 
satisfied, with the slight unemphatic statement 
of the New Creed upon this subject, so much re- 
sembling a bare " moral influence " view. Not 
only do governmental and moral considerations 
require an express mention of the expiatory 
nature of Christ's work ; but also, vital consid- 
erations demand a recognition of Christ's pur- 
chase by blood of the renewing Spirit for the 
reconstruction of souls. 

By virtue of Christ's death, <6 God sent forth 
the Spirit of his Son " ; (Gal. 4 : 6, Rom. 8 : 9, 
1 Cor. 15 :45, 2 Cor. 3 : 17, Phil. 1 : 19, 1 Pet. 
1 :n, 1 Jn. 4:13, Jn. 14: 17, 18, 20, &c.) 
That Spirit could only come into men by the 
death and intercession of Christ ; (Jn. 7 : 39, 
Ac. 19:2, 3 ;) and he thus obtained it as a 
gift for the renewal of men ; (Jn. 14 : 16, & 15 : 
26, & 16 : 14, & 20 : 22, Ac. 1 : 5, & 2 : 33, Eph. 



104 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

4:8.) This great work of the atonement, by 
which alone fallen nature has any possibility of 
reconstruction and restoration, is not sufficiently 
dwelt upon. But here we have this Vital 
Theol ogy bringing it out distinctly to view. 

2. This aspect of truth also emphasizes the 
infallibility of God's word ; which the New 
Creed is afraid to assert. For it shows, that 
the Spirit thus purchased by Christ's death to 
dwell as a new life in believers, operates on 
unrenewed men only outside by the Word of 
God presented ; which is the Spirifs own voice to 
instruct, and his sword to subdue. (Mar. 12 : 
36, Eph. 6 : 17.) Anything written in Scripture 
is expressly called the Spirit's utterance : " As 
the Holy Ghost saith (in psalms) — harden not 
your hearts"; (Heb. 3 : 7, & 9:8, & 10:15.) 
" Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias " ; (Ac. 
28:25.) "Hear what the Spirit saith to the 
churches"; (Rev. 2 : 7, &c.) "The Spirit of 
Christ that was in them (the prophets) — testified 
beforehand"; (1 Pet. 1 : 11.) Since the words 
thus written by men, are not only guided by the 
Spirit, but are the very utterance of the Spirit to 
every man reading or hearing them, it is not 
supposable that there is any error intermixed 
with them. The Bible is certainly infallible, if 
it is inspired at all. 



\ 



Sundry Vital Truths, 105 

3. The Vital Theology further illuminates 
the great mystery of God's foreknozv ledge, as 
related to human responsibility. The point at 
which the seeming collision between these two 
comes in, is not on the moral question of ruin 
or salvation (as too many treat the matter) ; for 
salvation is all of sovereign grace given gratu- 
itously, so that man can have no responsibility 
in regard to it. But human duty comes in un- 
der the requirement that we " ask " for the 
Spirit's aid, and by it " believe " unto salvation. 
Here, in the vital matter of securing consti- 
tutional renewal, is where responsibility begins. 
And here, God's foreknowledge of whether we 
will ask or not, can be no possible infringe- 
ment upon our ability or our privilege to ask ; 
which has been so abundantly demonstrated in 
the last two chapters. God summons us to the 
privilege rather than the direct duty of being 
saved ; and the privilege or opportunity is a 
certainty, whatever the foreseen result may be. 

Every one has noticed the impenetrable fog 
which is thrown over this subject, by every 
usual attempt to explain it, on the governmental 
view of election to salvation, instead of this 
primary constitutional view of election to re- 
newal. Thus, in an able treatise just put forth 
to clear up foreknowledge, we read : " Has 



106 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

any sinner a right to withhold from God the love 
that is his due, until he is sure that God designs 
to make him eternally happy ?" " God's fore- 
seeing that many sinners will not repent, or 
believe, or love, or obey, [i. e. all sinners to 
whom God does not "give repentance" by 
means of his Spirit,] — affords not the least 
excuse for their refusing to perform these du- 
ties " ; — though they have no moral or spiritual 
ability to do so without that Spirit, and no way 
is suggested for getting it ! 

How confusing and unconvincing are such un- 
lucid elucidations ! The whole becomes sim- 
ple, when translated into the Vital View here 
given, thus : " Has any sinner an " excuse for 
going without God's offered Spirit (to lead him 
into all duty and blessing), " until he is sure 
that God " foresees his acceptance of the offer ? 
" God's foreseeing that many sinners will not " 
ask and so receive the offered Spirit leading 
them to repentance and love, " affords not the 
least excuse for their refusing " to ask for it, 
and so failing of salvation. Thus translated 
into the intelligible language of Vital Theol- 
ology, the plea for man's inexcusableness 
under God's foreknowledge, becomes clear and 
convincing. Surely, God's foresight of my 
free choice and its result, does not weaken my 



Sundry Vital Truths. 107 



ability and privilege to exercise that free 
choice. 

4. Then again, the Vital Theology throws 
light on Eschatology, or the study of " The 
Last Things." The New Creed is so far 
behind the Fathers and the articles of all our 
churches, that it does not even mention a Day 
of Judgment, or a bodily Resurrection, or, any 
Coming of Christ to raise the dead, as a future 
event. And this is plainly because a faith in 
these things is fast dying out among us. 
There is no concealing the fact, that many of 
our leading (and mis-leading) writers and 
preachers are fearfully perverting the plain 
teachings of Scripture on these subjects, and 
hiding out of men's sight " The Day of the 
Lord approaching." The natural consequence 
is, an alarming and growing recklessness and 
devotion to the present world. If the Bible 
does not mean what it plainly says on these 
great themes, and what the church of all ages 
has seen it to mean, then the faith of us close 
Bible students has no Word of God left to 
cling to, and Christianity will go by the board. 
For it is certain, that no cautious, critical, accu- 
rate scholar has been able, or will be able, to 
maintain the Scripture infallibility or even 
authority, and at the same time deny the great 



108 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

future events mentioned above, as there re- 
vealed. And yet they are being coolly blinked 
out of sight by our leaders. 

Fallen man has a twofold nature (a dichot- 
omy) of "body and soul " ; (Mat. 10 : 28.) — 
When " renewed after the image of him that 
created him," (Col. 3 : 10,) by an inwrought 
spirit from God, (" that which is born of the 
Spirit is spirit" Jn. 3 : 6,) man recovers (in 
likeness to God) his threefoldness of nature, 
(a trichotomy,) as "body, soul, and spirit," 
(1 Thes. 5 : 23.) The human soul moulds 
the body, in its forming, into fitness to itself. 
Hence this natural frame- work is called the 
psychical or " soul body," as the term "natural 
body" in 1 Cor. 15, 44-46 literally reads. 
And since the human soul (or psychee) by rea- 
son of the fall is imperfect, having lost its best 
element, the divine nature or inwrought Spirit 
from God, (1 Cor. 2 : 14, 15, Jude 19,) — 
therefore the psychical body worked out by it 
is also imperfect, and necessarily goes to 
decay. 

Even the renewed soul is unable to over- 
come the bodily deterioration ; so that still, 
the old building has to be taken down and 
reconstructed, to secure a suitable habitation 
for the spiritual man; (Rom. 8: 11.) Death 



Sundry rival I 'ruths* 109 

to the sanctified is a blessed necessity ; resur- 
rection will result, to furnish for us the " house 
not made with hands." The new body thus 
attained being fashioned for the needs of man's 
higher spirit, and by the working of God's 
indwelling Spirit, is called the " spiritual 
body," (1 Cor. 15 : 44-46,) in distinction from 
the pyschical or " soul body " now possessed. 
" There is a soul body, and there is a spirit 
body," (v. 44.)* The latter as truly as the 
former is a real body, physical or material, (for 
that is the very meaning of body /) — though 
the material is less gross, and the organism 
more ethereal, (1 Cor. 15 : 38 onw r ard,) — not 
a disembodied spirit, but a " spiritual body" 

This full and final reconstruction of re- 
deemed beings, has to be deferred to one 
great Resurrection Day, (Jn. 5 : 28, & 11 : 
24,) with an intermediate or separate state of 
souls comparatively unchanging and unpro- 



*The contrast here is not between a physical body 
and a spiritual body, as many mistake it. The word 
translated " natural " (psychikon) is psychical or men- 
tal, not physical (or physikon, as at 2 Pet. 2 : 12) ; and 
the two must not be confounded. It is the word 
" body " that indicates the physical or material quality, 
alike in both cases, giving us a psychical BODY and a 
spiritual BODY. 



no The Pilgri?n Faith Maintained, 

gressive ; in order that neither the living nor 
the dead may " prevent " or get the advantage 
one of the other, (i Thes. 4 : 15.) — but may 
all start in resurrection glory together, with the 
old memories and recognitions unimpaired. 
And it has to be ushered in by a personal vis- 
ible " Coming of the Son of man/' (1 Thes. 
4: 16;) because, he being in a like human 
body, by the power of his own resurrection 
will raise up his people, to be ever with him ; 
(ver. 17, & 1 Cor. 15 : 20-23.) 

God's servants are not always going to die; 
but by and by, instead of dying like Seth, they 
will be translated like Enoch; (1 Cor. 15 : 51, 
52, 1 Thes. 4: 15-17.)* There will be "new 
heavens and a new earth," and a " New Jeru- 



*i Cor. 15: 51. "We shall not all sleep," Greek, 
" not all fall asleep " or die. This Greek verb koimao, 
active " put to sleep," passive " be put to sleep, go to 
sleep, fall asleep," — has this sense of beginning sleep 
in all its 18 uses in the N. T. ; being rendered "fall 
asleep" 5 times in our Old Version, 12 times in the 
Revision ; it may be so translated in all the 6 remain- 
ing cases. In 15 out of the 18 uses it is applied to the 
sleep of death. In this chapter (1 Cor. 15th), it occurs 
4 times, in 2 being rendered " fall asleep," as it ought 
to be in all 4. — The other Greek verb, katheudo, used 
22 times in the N. T., and never applied to dying 
(even in case of Jairus' daughter, or even by special 



Sundry Vital Truths. 



ill 



salem coming down from God out of heaven " ; 
(Rev. 21 : 1-3;) — and redeemed "man all 
immortal," spirit, soul, and body entire, (1 
Thes. 5: 23,) will abide, — not a shadowy- 
ghost of some unknown sphere, but rather a 
human immortal, acting physically on God's 
human world, — the perfection of the present 
manhood, with a real mission of happiness in 
usefulness forever. Such a live destiny alone 
(not a bodiless abstraction) is worthy of the 
perfect Creator who offers it, and of the rest- 
less love-working creatures that aspire to it. 

And the Creed that knows nothing (or does 
not say anything) about an hereafter of bodily 
resurrection and reign with a bodily Christ 
" coming in the clouds of heaven," — glorious 
truths distinctly held up in all our confessions 

word-play at 1 Thes. 5: 10,) — means to "sleep, to be 
asleep, to sleep on," and always indicates a continuing 
state of sleep, in contrast with the momentary act of 
beginning sleep expressed by this other word as applied 
to the momentary act of dying, — Hence, the fancy of 
one late writer, that the statement "we shall not all 
sleep " may mean " not all stay asleep " in an interme- 
diate state, but "we shall be changed in dying" — is 
entirely untenable. By this impossible exposition, he 
wants to make out no end to dying for God's people on 
the earth ; in direct contradiction of this very chapter, 
verse 25, 26. 



H2 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

hitherto, and greatly comforting our saintly 
Fathers, — is surely a meagre creed, letting 
down all our higher hopes of immortality. 
When at the tomb of our risen Lord, or on 
the mount of ascension, with angels standing 
by to attest those great truths, (Ac, i : n,) 
these modern wiseacres coolly assure us, that 
it is all a metaphor, and that no bodily Saviour 
will ever visit us or our world again ; — we feel 
like sadly saying, with the weeping Magdalene, 
" They have taken away my Lord, and I know 
not where they have laid him." 



The Faith Maintained, 



113 



CHAPTER X. 

THE FAITH MAINTAINED. 

" It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort 
you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith 
once delivered to the saints." Jude 3. 

In objecting to the omissions of the New 
Creed, we know it is said by some that the 
New Creed did not need to have much of any- 
thing in it, — for it was not meant for much of 
anything. And good sound orthodox men were 
cajoled into signing it, on this simple ground, 
that though it omits the chief great distinguish- 
ing points of Evangelical Faith, yet still it 
leaves us at liberty to believe more than it says, 
if we please. Indeed ! Then we are not slaves 
yet ; we are not to be tortured with racks and 
thumbscrews, if we insist on a little more 
orthodoxy, and dare to defend the faith of the 
Pilgrims. Thank you. — Though it seems we 
may still be freely scouted as " old fogies " — 
" anchored " — " in a hopeless minority." We 
do not consider a new foggy any better than an 
" old fogy " ; and if the unanimity of the 
fathers has so soon become the minority of 
8 



H4 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

their sons, there is so much the more reason 
for us to speak out. 

Who does not know, that the document was 
intended and will be employed to proclaim, 
what the Congregational denomination as a 
whole believe, and what alone they insist upon ? 

— that which is to be held up and made popu- 
lar as the true liberal view, to the 'disparaging 
of other views as fossiliferous and behind the 
times. True,- what the creed says is well 
enough- so far as it goes. And we can believe 
more, can we ? Even many of the signers do 
believe a great deal more, do they ? Ah, yes ! 

— There is a rebellion. The government pre- 
scribes an oath : " You swear that you will sup- 
port the Constitution." Excellent ! What 
could be better, so far as it goes ? But what 
Constitution ? Congress declines to say what; 
and yonder is a rebel taking that very oath. 

" By the Constitution," he says, " I under- 
stand the constitution current where I live, the 
constitution of the Confederate States. Any- 
body else is at liberty to apply it to the United 
States constitution, if he pleases." — Do you 
maintain the Loyal Union thus ? 

" Does our orthodoxy need fencing ? " asks 
one prominent brother, in recommending the 
creed as containing enough. Perhaps it did 



The Faith Maintained. 115 

not, we answer, — while the old fence stood. 
But when you tore that down, why have you 
put up a new fence (or creed) ? It certainly is 
meant for a fence. For, the Secretary of the 
Commission, defending its action, publicly an- 
nounces, as the intended object and use of the 
new creed, that it was "prepared as a basis and 
standard of Congregational fellowship" But 
what a shaky fence ! and how full of holes ! 
through which all sorts of unevangelical isms 
can ride without unharnessing. Better no 
fence, than such a rickety fence as this. When 
the field is left open, the herd-law comes in to 
protect it; and wayfarers are more likely to 
respect a flower plat left exposed to their honor, 
than a pretended enclosure with gates and 
bars all taken away. 

If, like some sects, we were content to trust 
"the Bible alone " as all our creed, we could keep 
ourselves more orthodox, than we shall with an 
express formula of " fellowship/' which by its 
omissions invites in all sorts of belief. Indeed, 
we are so free from bigotry and sectarism, and 
so enamored of evangelical union, that some of 
us could live quite contentedly in a church 
with no confession of faith, or a simply evangel- 
ical confession. But we are so profoundly im- 
pressed, that this New Creed, instead of being 



Ii6 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

such, does actually encourage Pelagianism, the 
most fundamental of all heresies, — that we could 
no more fellowship with a church or an associa- 
tion of ministers, having this creed alone as its 
express statement of foundation doctrines, than 
we could unite with a Unitarian church. It is 
one thing, and a pardonable thing, to have very 
summary articles or no articles of faith ; but to 
have full positive articles professing to state 
the essentials while leaving the most essential 
points out, — this is quite another thing, to 
which no faithful disciple can "give place by 
subjection, no, not for an hour." (Gal. 2 : 5.) 

A candidate for the pulpit is on examination. 
He reads his articles of faith : ..." I believe with 
Paul — \ Behold therefore the goodness of 
God V " Excellent ! what a delightful thought ! 
how sweetly and tersely expressed ! But hold ; 
the candidate declines to add the rest of the 
sentence ; he will not say with Paul : " Behold 
therefore the goodness and severity of God." 
Is he all right for the pulpit, because he coolly 
assures you, that you can add that to your faith, 
if you will ? Suppose he says : " I cordially 
accept the New Creed of the denomination, 
and that is my belief " according to the measure 
of my understanding of it," (the formula of as- 
sent given.) What right has anybody to ques- 



The Faith Maintained. 



117 



tion him or press him any further, upon points 
purposely omitted there as not essential ? He 
and his church are fully agreed, and they are 
in harmony with the demands of their denomi- 
nation as a whole, expressed in an orderly way. 
All further inquisition (beyond the essentials 
there agreed upon) is certainly an impertinence. 
For, if one set of men are " fossils " unwilling 
to instal, any other set of men called for the 
purpose will feel authorized to proceed, and 
under that creed full fellowship will be estab- 
lished with the denomination as a whole, no 
matter who objects. 

Is it said, this creed does not represent the 
denomination even as a whole, until at least the 
majority have formally adopted it ? Then, that 
is just what we are trying to prevent. But it 
does already in a measure misrepresent the 
denomination. For it is put forth by a large 
and able Commission of all shades of belief, 
under the sanction and authority of the highest 
and widest body professing to represent us, the 
" National Council," — as a full exhibit of all 
the essentials held generally among us. And 
what we are doing here is, in the name of the 
Pilgrim Fathers and their faithful sons, to pro- 
test ; that this Commission, honored as they 
are, have made a mistake, and have left out much 



n8 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

that the great majority still consider essential. 
We cannot hold our peace, much as it pains us 
thus to demur ; because conscience as well as 
shame forbids us to be known as fellowshiping 
a faith that we regard as far below Evangeli- 
cal. " If the foundations be destroyed, what 
can the righteous do ? " (Psa. 11:3.) 

Because this New Creed was "prepared as a 
basis and condition of Congregational fellowship" 
— therefore, its intentional omissions are a 
purposed letting down of our standard of ortho- 
doxy, — a deliberate surrender of the Pilgrim 
Faith. When it is said in Article III., that " all 
men are alienated from God," this includes 
Adam and Eve ; and therefore the other clause 
saying that " our first parents fell," is of no use 
whatever. It is there evidently only as a blind, 
giving the article a look as if it taught the fall 
of mankind in Adam, though it does not even 
suggest any such thing. The more charitable 
construction, however, is, that the now useless 
clause about " our first parents " was at first 
put there, with the consequent ruin of mankind 
appended to it ; and that, when this fundamen- 
tal doctrine was purposely dropped out, this need- 
less and misleading clause was carelessly left, 
as a blotch, to disfigure the creed, as it does, 
without adding anything to it. 



Radical Omissions of the New Creed. 119 

Good men no doubt meant well, when they 
reluctantly appended their names to a muti- 
lated exhibit of their essential faith, in the hope 
(as alleged) that no bad use would be made of 
it ; but this only shows how unwise the best of 
men will sometimes be. Many are rushing 
headlong into the substitution of this for the 
fuller faith of the fathers ; they will have time 
to repent at their leisure, — such of them as 
may be still kept to orthodoxy. For, that the 
letting down by this creed is not from hyper- 
Calvinism to simple Evangelical doctrine, — 
but is to a plane far below Evangelical, — may 
be seen in such particulars as these : 

Radical Omissions of the New Creed. 

1. Worst of all, nothing inserted in opposi- 
tion to Pelagianism, — no assertion of a fallen 
race, or of any moral connection with Adam, 
or of any constitutional loss or evil, requiring 
the regeneration of every individual soul. 

2. No assertion of the direct inspiration 
and infallible authority of Scripture, — to check 
Rationalism among us. 

3. No direct assertion of the expiatory 
character of the atonement, or of Christ's suf- 
fering the just for the unjust, — to check Uni- 
tarianism among us. 



120 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained, 

4. No assertion of final judgment as for 
the things done (or attained) in the body, — 
to check Universalis™ among us. 

5. No assertion of a Day of Judgment and 
Resurrection and Coming of the Lord, or any 
such great future event, — to check the Swe. 
denborgianism that is just now flooding us. 

These are all vital points ; and to omit them 
now, is to break down the hedges of Zion, " so 
that all they that pass by the way may pluck 
her," leaving "the boar out of the wood to 
waste it, and the wild beast of the field to 
devour it." (Psa. 80 : 12, 13.) 

Let no one astutely suggest, that in severely 
criticising omissions as we do, we are our- 
selves doing as badly, or worse, by offering 
innovations upon the old faith within these 
very pages. For, the difference is wide as the 
sundering of heaven and earth. Essentials 
must be maintained, and must be expressed. 
The New Creed does not do this ; but to do 
this is the one great purpose of this book. 
Minor details of the old confessions, and espe- 
cially philosophical ideas coloring them, though 
not essential to them, may be modified or elim- 
inated ; and they have been so dealt with 
through all our history. Indeed, the only way 
to maintain the essentials, is to allow and 



All the Novelties in this Essay. ill 

encourage improvement of the details. If this 
work of careful revision, without evisceration, 
had been performed by the commission, our 
solid orthodoxy might have remained unchal- 
lenged to-day. 

That it may be seen how few and how slight 
are the corrections, by which we here are 
enabled to defend stoutly the faith of the 
fathers, — and how largely they turn on philo- 
sophical rectifications, and not assaults upon any 
Bible Doctrine, we here append a list of 

All the Novelties in this Essay. 

1. The " death " penalty applied at the 
fall to the human race, was not so much an in- 
fliction as a privation, — a loss of the Spirit as a 
divine nature ; leaving all mankind (not only 
dying but) spiritually dead, or destitute of 
spiritual life, until individually renewed by the 
Holy Spirit, as a gift purchased in Christ's 
death. 

2. The renewing Spirit is obtained and 
kept by all who choose to have it, as well as by 
all whom God chooses to have it. For, an un- 
renewed person can desire and ask for the 
renewing Spirit ; and to such God has prom- 
ised to give it ; while he will also in sovereign 
mercy renew as many others as he pleases. 



122 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

3. To the renewed returns the blessing of 
eternal growth, in holiness and joy; to the 
unrenewed comes the relief (not of "eternal 
hope " but) of eternal decay, in the sinning and 
sorrow that naturally follow an unrenewed 
life. This decay is by reason of inactivity in 
imprisonment after death ; and it is a fading 
of faculty and experience, not a loss of sub- 
stance or character. 

4. This law of decay is resisted and les- 
sened by the counter- law of reserve; which 
acts more and more in proportion to length of 
probationary life, and amount of light, and 
extent of moral action. So that, while the 
briefest, most ignorant, scarce sinning experi- 
ence, if ending unrenewed must soon fade out 
in decay ; the long-hardened rejection of Gos- 
pel light must hold out ""reserved " in unending 
(though decaying) sorrow. Hence, 

5. The natural destiny of fallen humanity 
is not at all the special eternal destiny pro- 
nounced upon evangelized people living under 
Gospel instruction ; but infants and pagans 
(until enlightened or renewed) are under the 
natural law of decay, counteracted more or less 
by the reserving law of activity under light. 
So that, an infant could not suffer perma- 
nently ; and " they that sin without law "perish 
without law or gospel condemnation. 



The Pilgrim Faith. 



123 



With the philosophical modifications here 
indicated, the Old Calvinism becomes New 
Calvinism, and the Orthodox Faith of the 
Fathers is maintained in its integrity, without 
the rejection of any essential doctrine. This 
will be seen in the revised Confession of Faith 
here appended. 



124 



The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 



THE PILGRIM FAITH. 

{Essence of the Westminster Confession*} 

1. We believe \n one God, and one only, the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Maker, 
Redeemer, and sanctifies of men ; Creator and 
Governor of all beings and worlds, and infinite 
in all natural and moral perfections. 

2. We believe that the Providence of God 
executes his eternal purposes in the govern- 
ment of the world, and is in and over all 
beings and events ; yet so that the freedom and 
responsibility of man are not impaired, and 
sin is the act of the creature alone. 

3. We believe that man was made in the 
image of God, that he might know, love, and 
obey God, and enjoy him forever \ that our 
first parents by disobedience fell under the 
righteous condemnation of God ; that, in con- 
sequence thereof all mankind are by nature in 
spiritual death and darkness, from which there is 
no deliverance but by renewal of the Spirit indi- 
vidually received; and that all men are so alien- 
ated from God, that there is no salvation from 
the guilt and power of sin, except through 
God's redeeming grace personally applied. 



She Bfigrim Faith. 



125 



4. . We believe that God would have all 
men to return to him ; that to this end he has 
made himself known, not only through the 
works of nature, the course of his providence, 
and the consciences of men, but also through 
supernatural revelations made especially to a 
chosen people, and above all, when the fulness 
of time was come, through Jesus Christ his 
Son. 

5. We believe that the Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testaments are the i?ispired 
record of God's revelation of himself in the 
work of redemption ; that they were written 
by men under the special guidance of the 
Holy Spirit ; that they are able to make wise 
unto salvation ; and that, being thus give?z by 
inspiration of God, they constitute the only in- 
fallible and authoritative standard by which 
religious teaching and human conduct are to 
be regulated and judged. 

6 We believe that the love of God to sin- 
ful mer has found its highest expression in the 
redemptive work of his Son ; who became 
man, uniting his divine nature with our human 
nature in one person; who was tempted like 
other men, yet without sin ; who by his humili- 
ation, his holy obedience, his sufferings, his 
death on the cross, and his resurrection, be- 



126 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

came a perfect Redeemer; whose renovating 
expiating sacrifice of himself for the sins of 
the world, the just suffering for the unjust, brings 
renewal for men and declares the righteousness 
of God, being the sole and sufficient ground of 
forgiveness and of reconciliation with him. 

7. We believe that Jesus Christ, after he 
had risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, 
where as the one Mediator between God and 
man, he carries forward his work of saving 
men ; that he sends his renewing Spirit to 
whomsoever he pleases and to all who ask for it 9 
to convict them of sin, and to lead them to 
repentance and faith ; and that those who 
through this renewing grace thus turn to right- 
eousness, and trust in Jesus Christ as their 
Redeemer, receive for his sake the forgiveness 
of their sins, and are made the children of God. 

8. We believe that those who are thus re- 
generated and justified, grow in sanctified char- 
acter through fellowship with Christ, the in- 
dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and obedience to 
the truth ; that a holy life is the fruit and evi- 
dence of faith ; and that believers have assur- 
ance of continuance in such a life by and only 
by trust in the preserving grace of God. 

9. We believe that Jesus Christ came to 
establish among men the kingdom of God, the 



The Pilgrim Faith. 



127 



reign of truth and love, righteousness and 
peace ; that to Jesus Christ the head of this 
kingdom, christians are directly responsible in 
faith and conduct; and that to him all have 
immediate access without mediatorial or priestly 
intervention. 

10. We believe that the Church of Christ, 
invisible and spiritual, comprises all true be- 
lievers, whose duty it is to associate themselves 
in churches, for the maintenance of worship, 
for the promotion of spiritual growth and fel- 
lowship, and for the conversion of men ; that 
these churches, under the guidance of the 
Holy Scriptures and in fellowship with one 
another, may determine — each for itself — 
their organization, statements of belief, and 
forms of worship ; may appoint and set apart 
their own ministers, and should co-operate in 
the work which Christ has committed to them 
for the furtherance of the Gospel throughout 
the world. 

11. We believe in the observance of the 
Lord's Day as a day of holy rest and worship ; 
in the ministry of the Word ; and in the two 
sacraments which Christ has appointed for his 
church: Baptism, a duty of believers and a 
privilege of 'their children, as the sign of cleans- 
ing from sin, of union to Christ, and of the 



128 The Pilgrim Faith Maintained. 

impartation of the Holy Spirit ; and the Lord's 
Supper, for believers only, as a symbol of his 
atoning death, a seal of its efficacy, and a 
means whereby he confirms and strengthens 
the spiritual union and communion of believers 
with himself. 

12. We believe in the ultimate prevalence 
of the kingdom of Christ over all the earth ; 
in that great future event, the glorious appear- 
ing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus 
Christ ; in the bodily resurrection of the dead 
at the last day ; and in a final day of judgment, 
the issues of which, determined by the things at- 
tained in the body, are everlasting punishment 
and everlasting life. 

(Note. All the above in Roman type is 
the New Creed issued by the " Commission." 
The Italics show the essentials oniitted, or the 
Revision needed to conform it to the Pilgrim 
Faith.) 



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